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Tautai says WestPac vote gives longliners hope

Tautai-O-Samoa Longline & Fishing Association president Christinna Lutu-Sanchez expressed the association’s sincere and heartfelt appreciation to the Western Pacific Region Fishery Management Council “for hearing our desperate pleas for help.”

 

Late Wednesday afternoon the Council, during the third and final day of its 162nd meeting in Honolulu, Hawai’i, approved a temporary exemption to the Large Vessel Protected Area (LVPA) waters of American Samoa, thus allowing longliners to fish in the area preserved for alias, outward of 12 nautical miles — the exemption will be reviewed by the Council annually. (See yesterday’s story for specific details)

 

The Council “has never stopped looking for solutions to our crisis,” Lutu-Sanchez said in a statement Wednesday evening following the vote. She said the locally based U.S. longline fleet “has been suffocating and crying out for help” and the council, along with the executive director and staff “have been our lifeline, and they have kept us from drowning.”

 

Lutu-Sanchez said the Council’s decision is “monumental in that it now gives us some hope that the last U.S. longline albacore fleet remaining in the world will continue to survive.”

 

“For the record, our initial pleas went to our local government and local council members, not once or twice, but several times. Their silence has been deafening, but the support of many others has carried us through,” she said, adding that longline boat owners are native American Samoans, American Samoa residents and U.S. citizens.

 

COUNCIL’S DISCUSSION

 

Before the vote, the Council’s environmental policy coordinator Eric Kingma made a lengthy presentation, which was similar to the one made during a public meeting in Pago Pago earlier this year in the Senate chambers.

 

Information provided at the Council meeting noted that there were 19 active longline vessels last year and new data states that there were less than two active smaller vessels (alia) in American Samoa the same year.

 

Other information provided in the presentation dealt with the heavily subsidized Chinese vessels fishing in the region, and the fact that StarKist is now having to buy frozen albacore from China, although the fish were caught in the South Pacific. Additionally, StarKist and Tri Marine canneries both supported the exemption.

 

It was noted that the Council had twice last year delayed a vote on the LVPN exemption to allow more public hearings in American Samoa, as requested by the governor, to get more local feedback on this issue.

 

American Samoa members and one of the two co-chairs of the Council, Taulapapa Willie Sword was the first to “beg the indulgence” of the Council to again postpone a vote on the LVPN in order to allow the territory to reach a final decision.

 

He also said that local government leaders, including the governor and the Fono, want to review the fishing rights and “perhaps they will eventually see the value of the Magnuson-Stevens Act. For now they’d like to ‘Faamoe le Toa’ — Let the warriors sleep —for another day, for new ideas, new thoughts. It will be a way forward.”

 

Taulapapa, a recreational fisherman, informed the Council that fuel prices are low but the longliners are still not going out to fish. “I do not understand why,” he said, and noted that if the  Council has to enact something, he favors a one-year exemption.

 

Marine and Wildlife Resources director, Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga, who is American Samoa’s second member on the Council, said the local government is working to rebuild the alia fishing industry since the 2009 tsunami, which she says damaged lot of boats, and it wasn’t until 2014 that federal help became available for the local fishing fleet.

 

“So we’re trying to build that up,” she said referring to the alia fleet, and “it takes a while to recover. It takes time to rebound.” She also said that local government has stepped up to help the alia fleet.

 

“They (the alia fleet) now have the assistance. For the first time ever, the government of American Samoa has set money aside, to give fuel, to give safety equipment as the Council has been doing all this time. So there is effort by the government... to try to help them,” said Matagi-Tofiga, who shared with her colleagues that while she is not a fisherman, her family comes from the Manu’a islands and that fishing is their livelihood.

 

She also said that the new floating dock for the alias — which had been devastated since the 2009 tsunami — was dedicated last year, adding, “these are all the things that we’re trying to do to make sure that they can now go out fishing, but it takes time.”

 

Port Administration director, Taimalelagi Dr. Claire Poumele, who is American Samoa’s third member on the Council, noted that the LVPA is a “hot topic for our people and for the Council”, who have for the past many years provided assistance for American Samoa, “in terms of working with us in developing fisheries in our islands.”

 

“Does our government recognize the need to improve the efficiency of the longliners? Yes, we do,” she said. “Does the government recognize the need for us to improve the efficiency of the local fishermen, more so? Do we recognize that need? Yes.”

 

She acknowledged that there is no united voice on the proposal to provide a temporary exemption for the longliners to fish in the LVPA.

 

“I wish we could be sitting here with one voice. That is the way we create harmony,” she pointed out. “Unfortunately we don’t have one voice. We have a group that has brought in their request for assistance and you have a humble request from our governor, who is the steward of our islands, who’s responsible to ensure that the decisions we make will be in the best interest of all.”

 

“We’re close to coming to that point where we’ll have a unified voice,” she said and noted that it takes a little bit more time to get the unified voice and urged the Council to postpone the vote.

 

Council chairman Edwin Ebisui (not Ebesui, as in yesterday’s story) of Hawai’i said that as a Council member, his first reaction was “to do what your governor is asking” yet, also as a Council member “I feel a very strong sense of obligation to the national standards.”

 

“I think it's very clear, that something needs to be done [and] we all acknowledge that. The current status quo is not acceptable,” he said, adding that the alias are no longer utilizing the LVPA.

 

While the alia fleet may be building up to again fully use the reserve area for their fishing, it will take time, “but  I’m hopeful that any exemption, does not derail, or defer the rebuilding of the alia longline activity,” he said.

 

Ebisui explained that his concern deals with the national standard provisions, which are cited under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act.

 

The provisions state in part that conservation and management measures:

 

•           Shall prevent overfishing while “achieving, on a continuing basis, the optimum yield “ from each fishery for the United States fishing industry.

 

•           Shall not discriminate between residents of different States. If it becomes necessary to allocate or assign fishing privileges among various United States fishermen, such allocation — should be among other things, fair and equitable to all such fishermen.

 

Ebisui called this issue with the LVPA an “allocation” and “I can’t escape that”.

 

“I feel very compelled to do something to alter the status quo,” he said and points out that he is “most comfortable” with the exemption which calls for the annual review and this assures the alia fleet that this regulation “is not set in stone” and that “we can go back to make adjustments”.

 

He also pointed to the graphics and data presented by Kingma showing that alia activity had dropped off significantly, well before the 2009 tsunami.