MANILA – The Philippines fisheries bureau director has defended the lifting of
the ban on FAD fishing in Pocket 1 High Seas in the Western Pacific region for
Filipino tuna fishing vessels, telling delegates at the 9th Western and Central
Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) meeting that the exemption may have helped
eased pressure on the country’s tuna spawning and nursery grounds.
The Sulu Sea and the Sulawesi Sea
are said to be the spawning ground of yellowfin tuna and skip jacks.
Both tuna species are highly
migratory.
Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic
Resources director Asis Perez however also said the Philippines is willing to
sit down with everybody to discuss issues related to the opening of Pocket 1 to
Filipino tuna fishing vessels.
Pocket 1 is an area of more than
560,000 square miles of international waters north of Papua New Guinea and east
of Indonesia.
Asis said the Philippines is
still consolidating data on catches both inside Philippine waters and the
initial landings of tuna catch from the reopened high seas pocket exclusively
for Filipino tuna fishing vessels.
But the Philippine fisheries director
said there are already marked differences in the sizes of skipjacks and other
tuna-like species caught between two fishing grounds.
He said initial tuna catch from
the high seas, after it was reopened recently, are significantly longer and
larger that those caught inside Philippine waters.
Several participating member
countries are calling for the total closure of at least four high seas pockets
that lie across the migratory path of tuna and other tuna-like species.
Asis also told the WCPFC meeting
that the sample size of the recent catch landing from the said area is still
too small for the Philippines to accurately determine its impact to the tuna
stock.
He also refuted suggestion that
more than 400 Filipino fishing vessels are now deployed in the area reopened to
the Philippines.
He said of the 36 fleets allowed
to fish in the area, only 11 have so far reached the area with some still
working to comply with the stringent requirements of the WCPFC.
Asis said the number of Filipino
fishing vessels now in the area could not be more than 50.
He also reported that, so far,
only 678 metric tons of tuna catch have been landed in the fishing port of
General Santos City, some 920 kilometers south of Manila after these vessels
reached the area on October 1.
The WCPCS is still discussing a
draft conservation management measure submitted to the plenary session.
Among these is a 4-month closure
on FAD fishing and purse seine operations both in exclusive economic zones and
the high seas.
WCPFC is currently imposing a
3-month ban on FAD fishing among its member countries and have closed 4 pockets
of high seas in the Western Pacific ocean.
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