This week news came that small island nations in the Western Central Pacific region, might be able to process tuna raw material landed by boats from all kinds of flags and than export this processed tuna product to any of the 27 nations which are part of the European Union and benefit from the lucrative 0% import duty tariff . This will be music to the ears of owners of some ailing tuna loining plants and canneries on the remote Pacific islands , but give the Thai tuna industry, which is still facing 24% duty on canned tuna in Europe, pain in their tummy.

The current Rules of Origin system only allows small island nations to get 0% duty on their processed tuna – if it is produced from fish which has been landed by boats which have a 50 pct local ownership and also have at least 50 pct local crew, or it must be caught by tiny artesian boats within their 12 miles EEZ.  Since the islands have hardly any financial resources to buy big tuna boats and many of their people are not motivated to work on distant tuna vessels, only very few baots meet these criteria. This today causes problems in guaranteeing a regular flow of raw tuna to the canning and loining plants on the islands, and making them economically viable.

Although at first glance this new system, which drops the ownership and crew criteria, might provide only great advantages for the region, but it also harbors the danger of turning the Pacific Island region into one big laundromat. A big washing machine which washes illegal caught tuna white, and mixes it with legally caught tuna.

The great financial premium to deliver tuna to these Pacific nations, will only attract more tuna vessels to the region, also IUU ( Illegal Unregulated and Unreported) tuna boats, which want to benefit from the attractive financial gains involved. If boatwoners could be possibly get 15% more for their fish, on a market price of usd 1300 p. M/T for landed skipjack tuna, the advantage could be close to two hundred dollars per ton. This sucking effect can potentially lead to more intensive fishing in the region and could cause an even more rapid over-exploitation of the already vulnerable tuna Pacific resources.

Currently in the Western Central Pacific (WCP) region most large tuna purse seiners have no observers on board and still frequently transshipments are taking place on the high seas. Since the WCP is such a fast ocean area, the small islands have not sufficient navy resources to patrol their EEZ’s to monitor tuna fishing fleets and their activities.

With the current Rules Of Origin system which is connected to the ownership, a tight administration is required and only tuna from a few tuna vessels with the right ownership rules  can apply for the favourable 0% tariff. But with the newly, more liberal proposed system, where fish from any flags can apply from 0%, the current control system will proof to be insufficient and potentially make catching and laundering illegal tuna a very profitable activity.

If this happens all legal tuna operators ( the vast majority) in the region will be negatively effected, and see themselves forced to compete with illegal operators, which do not abide by the rules.

If the new origin schema really it brings the expected financial advantage for the Pacific islands in processing this fish also remains to be seen. In the end also Pacific nations will have to compete among each other in getting the raw tuna. The recent initiative of Papua New Guinea to build a large Pacific tuna centre in the port of Madang, illustrates the ambitions of this country in the area.

If correct tuna resource management measures are connected with the new Rules of Origin scheme, great gains could be made for all legal operators involved in the sector, and illegal practices can be greatly reduced.
Most of these management practices have already successfully been implemented in the Eastern Pacific Ocean by the IATTC. Each tuna purse seiner and longliner should start carrying an independent observer on aboard, no transshipments on the high seas should be allowed to take place, and no transshipments between carriers can take place at other non monitored ports. Each tuna vessel should discharge it own fish directly at the port where it wishes to deliver the tuna to.
By implementing these procedures, and providing the manpower to monitor it, the majority of legal operators in our tuna sector will be rewarded for fishing responsibly, conserving the tuna resources and abiding by the rules, and changes of illegal tuna fishing and laundering activity will be greatly reduced.

In the end the canneries in Thailand, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, both also American Samoa could become the big loosers in the new rules of origin scheme. Likely less fish will start coming their way, which will reduce their capability to export canned tuna to the US market and many other markets around the world. These markets now depend on the very competitively priced tuna from these Asian countries.

If the new origin scheme is correctly implemented not only the Pacific Island nations and their tuna resources will be benefiting, but also the European canned tuna industry. They will get access to more tuna, in the form of frozen pre-cooked tuna loins cleaned at processing plants spread over the Pacific. It will ensure the future of the European canneries and provide EU consumers continued access to the healthy and increasingly scarcer yellowfin and skipjack tuna.