New Pacific fisheries chief strengthens Nauru group
Updated
A group of eight Pacific countries have chosen the person who will be leading their campaign to capture a bigger slice of the economic benefits from the Pacific's multi-billion dollar tuna fisheries.
Transform Aqorau will be heading up the new Secretariat for the Parties to the Nauru Agreement which is being established in Majuro, capital of the Marshall Islands.
Presenter: Sean Dorney, Australia Network Pacific correspondent
Speaker: Dr Transform Aqorau, director of Secretariat for the Parties to the Nauru Agreement; Glen Joseph, director of the Marshall Islands Marine Resource Authority; Satya Nandan, chairman of the Central and Western Pacific Fisheries Commission
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DORNEY: The head of the newly created secretariat is Transform Aqorau - who's has been the Deputy Director of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency based in Solomon Islands. A Solomon Islander, Dr Aqorau is a recognised expert on the Pacific Tuna fishery. Back in October last year during the Compliance Meeting for the Central and Western Pacific Fisheries Commission held in the Federated States of Micronesia, I asked Dr Aqorau about the importance of the what's known as the Nauru group or the P-N-A, Parties to the Nauru Agreement.
AQORAU: These are Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. These eight countries control about 60 percent of the global tuna supply.
DORNEY: He's now going to be the head of the new PNA Secretariat. The members' combined 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zones interlock covering a huge expanse of the Pacific Ocean where a lot of the tuna are caught. The group's new headquarters is being set up in the Marshall Islands which has been a very active member of the P-N-A. The Director of the Marshall Islands Marine Resource Authority, Glen Joseph.
JOSEPH: The amount and the value of the fishery taken out of the Pacific Island waters amounts to about four billion dollars. And by all assessments the Pacific Islands are not getting a fair share of that four billion dollars.
DORNEY: That view drew some sympathy from the Chairman of the Central and Western Pacific Fisheries Commission, Ambassador Satya Nandan, from Fiji, who was himself a major figure in the negotiations more than 20 years ago when the world agreed to adopt the Exclusive Economic Zone concept.
NANDAN: One of the outcomes of this management regime that we've established is that Pacific Islands are beginning to realise that they can do things for themselves. They can also, if they're cohesive, they can improve the value, the fees that they've been getting for the fish which has been very low compared to what the value of the fish is on the market.
DORNEY: The new Director of the Nauru Group Secretariat, Dr Transform Aqorau, believes the Island countries need to stamp their authority over their most valuable common economic resource.
AQORAU: Hopefully, long term they're talking about having a share in the processing plants, owing their own brand. Because that's where the maximum value from the resource is, comes from, from the end product that's on the shelf.
DORNEY: There's an aggressive new player in the Pacific Tuna fishery determined to promote the interests of its eight Pacific Island members.
