Palau considers a foreign fishing ban
Updated
The Pacific Island nation of Palau has announced it is considering banning all foreign fishing vessels from its waters. If it becomes a reality the ban will cover Palau's "Exclusive Economic Zone" which extends 200 nautical miles around the island group.
Presenter:Pacific Correspondent Campbell Cooney
Speaker: Vice President of Palau, Elias Camsek Chin
COONEY: For many Pacific Island nations selling the right to fish in its waters is one of the few sources of national income. In the Pacific the main target is tuna, and now many nations are looking at limiting fishing by foreign vessels in territorial waters, economic zones and areas adjacent to them.
The Republic of Palau is considering going one step further. Vice President Elias Camsek Chin:
CHIN: Right now we just passed a law to ban exporting of live fish and then there is another bill in the Congress right now when we try to see, we're trying to ban entirely fishing in the Republic of Palau and it's just for sports fishing.
COONEY: If it becomes a reality the Palau ban will cover its Exclusive Economic Zone, which extends 200 miles in every direction from the island group. As stocks have started to run out in the other oceans of the world, the Pacific has become the hunting ground for more vessels from places like Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan as well as Europe and the Americas.
Earlier this month in Palau the representatives of eight Pacific Island nations agreed to bar foreign fishing boats from seas adjacent to their Exclusive Economic Zones. As well if any fleet has the right to fish within the EEZ's of those nations for part of the season they won't be able to use any device designed to attract fish, and will also be required to carry observers.
Mr Camsek Chin says his country has to decide if its future lies in fishing or tourism.
CHIN: We only have two sources of revenue, one is fishing and one is tourism, and right now we only concentrate on diving. And so if you branch out and we do sports fishing then that's another source of area that we can maximise.
COONEY: Is there any study or indications that the fish resources and stocks within the waters of the Republic of Palau are under stress as far as numbers and stocks go?
CHIN: Oh yeah, I mean that's the reason why we're thinking about going through the sports fishing because these fishing boats when they go there they're catching tons and tons of tuna. Once they're gone they're gone.
COONEY: Mr Camsek Chin says so far there's been no response from the fishing industry.
CHIN: They haven't come forward to give their rebuttal on that but again there are studies going on right now and I'm sure in time they'll be presenting their side of the story.
COONEY: Like most Pacific Island nations Palau relies on aid donors for income, and many of the aid donor nations are also the countries which have large open water fishing fleets operating in the Pacific.
Dr Richard Herr is from the School of Government at the University of Tasmania, and he's had a long-term involvement with Pacific politics on both an academic and professional basis. He says there's a reason fishing nations are watching what Palau's contemplating with considerable concern.
HERR: This is one of the world's last great areas of sustainable fisheries with some of the resources still being deemed under exploited, and to that extent if the .. water fishing agents were to be cut out they might feel it was worth taking the matter onboard, not because they need necessarily access to Palau but because they wouldn't want to establish a precedent that might spread to other states that they do have a need to get access to.
COONEY: The domino theory in the Pacific?
HERR: In some ways yes.
COONEY: So far the bill banning foreign fishing vessels has had one reading in Palau's Congress. Before the next reading there will be a number of reports and studies done on the proposal. Even then there's no guarantee it will become law. As Vice President Camsek Chin points out, 2008 is an election yar.
CHIN: Our new election is this year and so the Congress, you know how it is, it takes a while to go through this thing.
