Anouk Ride
Media and Publications
Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency
www.ffa.int

Extract From 40th Pacific Islands Forum Communique

Fisheries

15. Leaders noted that fisheries resources of the Pacific represent a major source of food and income for Pacific Islands Countries (PICs) and for many Pacific people is the main prospect for sustainable economic development. The maximization of return from these resources and their sustainable conservation and management is therefore fundamental to the long-term socio-economic wellbeing and stability of the region, as is the protection of those resources.

16. Leaders committed to working collectively to ensure that the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) adopts and implements effective measures to address overfishing of highly migratory fish stocks that are critical to the development opportunities of many Forum members countries.

17. Leaders also committed to working with the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) to ensure coastal States in the region are able to manage tuna resources, and maximise economic returns from the long-term sustainable utilisation of this resource for the enhancement of sustainable development and food security for the Pacific islands. To achieve these objectives it is important that the WCPFC, as well as national, conservation and management measures are underpinned by a strong, monitoring, control and surveillance framework. Leaders therefore welcome the initiative of the FFA to develop a Regional Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Strategy.

18. Leaders recalled the Vava’u Declaration and its reaffirmation in Niue in 2008, in particular, their call for “strengthened mechanisms to protect regional fisheries via new multilateral Pacific regional arrangements patterned on the Niue Treaty Subsidiary Agreement model for exchange of fisheries law enforcement data, cross-vesting of enforcement powers and the use of fisheries data for other law enforcement activities.”

19. Leaders agreed that in order to overcome the current hiatus in implementing this call to protect fisheries, that Australia host a meeting of PIC ministers responsible for both fisheries and law enforcement/justice in early 2010; at which agreement is to be reached both on the form of new legal arrangements to be negotiated and on a roadmap for the negotiation process, which should conclude no later than the end of 2012. Leaders further instructed that Ministers report back to Leaders on progress at the 2010 Leaders meeting, in the expectation that, at that time, Leaders will be able to endorse proposals put forward by Ministers on the form of the arrangements to be negotiated and the details of what areas are to be covered by those arrangements, thereby allowing formal negotiations on the detail to begin.

Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency
www.ffa.int

ENDS

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