Tuna Little, Tuna Late? At last month’s meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission in Guam, the central issue on the table was how to conserve bigeye and yellowfin tuna stocks. And according to Paul Dalzell, senior scientist for the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, headquartered in Honolulu, and head of the international commission’s working group on the subject, “there was no conservation movement at all on yellowfin and bigeye.”
“I was in the hot seat,” Dalzell said. “We had a proposal that would have shut down purse-seining on FADs [fish aggregating devices] for three months, to reduce the catch of juveniles and also called for about a 25 percent reduction in catch of bigeye by longline fleets.”
“Japan scuttled it,” he continued. “Japan wanted a one-month closure, which was backed up by Chinese Taipei, China, and Korea. We were doomed from the start.”
But where political will has failed, economics may succeed, Dalzell suggested. “There’s a good argument to suggest longline effort and catch has been declining anyway, since aging fleets and the high cost of fuel is making it less profitable to fish,” he said. “Economics may turn out to be the savior of the fishery.”
There were a few bright lights in the meeting, he said. “There’s a commitment now to full conservation measures to be adopted in 2008,” he said. “And we did get a win on a regional observer program and vessel monitoring systems. The observer program will start next year, aiming for 5 percent coverage of longline vessels, and 20 percent on purse seiners.
“You take your victories when you can.”
The environmental group Greenpeace, which observed the meeting, denounced the agency for its failure to adopt conservation measures. The distant-water fishing nations (so-called because their fleets ply waters far from their own) “blatantly disregarded the advice given to them by their scientists pointing out the need to drastically reduce the catch or face the consequences of an impending fishery collapse,” the group said in a press release.
Studying Hard: Last year, research was by far the most commonly permitted activity in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands and Midway and French Frigate Shoals were the most visisted, according to a recent update by the co-trustees of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
A 2007 summary of activities in the monument, which does not include fishing activities permitted by the Western Pacific Fishery Management Council, states that 36 of the 51 permits issued were for research. As for the rest, six permits were issued for conservation and management activities, five were for special ocean uses (Midway anniversary tours and filming/documentaries), two were for educational videos, one was for a native Hawaiian practice and one was for a historical/wildlife tour on Midway, the only NWHI atoll that allows recreational use. Of the 51 permits, 26 were for activities within state waters.
At a December briefing before the state Board of Land and Natural Resources, NOAA superintendent `Aulani Wilhelm said she hopes to be able to provide the public with web-based monument activity reports by early 2008.
Blowing Up: If all goes as planned, UPC Wind and Makani Nui Associates, which owns and operates the 30-megawatt Kaheawa wind farm on Maui, will expand its operations to O`ahu and Kaua`i.
Last November, Pacific Business News reported that the Kaua`i Island Utility Cooperative expects to begin buying power from a 15-megawatt wind farm, built and run by UPC Kaua`i Wind Power, by July. Also, UPC representatives met with the Ko`olauloa Neighborhood Board late last year to discuss a proposed 12-turbine wind farm on lands the company owns at Kahuku, on O`ahu’s north shore.
In the mid-1990s, a 15-turbine wind farm built by Hawaiian Electric Renewable Systems failed after a decade of operation. When asked by the board why its wind farm would succeed where the previous one hand failed, UPC’s Mike Goodman noted that “the materials are different, the company would be dedicated to run the project, and UPC actually owns the land that the farm sits on, so they are investing for the long run,” the board’s minutes state. When another board member noted that the old wind farm lit the entire sky, UPC’s Wren Wescott stated that its turbines would only beam upwards and they would not all need to be lit.
Volume 18, Number 7 — January 2008
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