Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources News

FFA Legal Officer Pio Manoa is in Nauru at the moment. Pio has been asked to review the Nauru fisheries legislation and recommend what we might need to add to bring the law up to date with the latest regional agreements on managing stocks of tuna in the western Pacific Ocean.

Nauru has signed several new agreements, since the Fisheries Act came into force in 1997 and the Fisheries Regulations were Gazetted in 1998, including the "Convention on the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean" and the 3rd Implementing Arrangement ("3IA") of the Nauru Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Management of Fisheries of Common Interest. 

The 3IA is a particularly significant regional agreement because it is apparently the first time that a group of Coastal States (in this case Nauru, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu) have got together to effectively restrict high seas fishing activities. They are doing this by withdrawing the licence of any vessel that fishes in either of the two high seas "enclaves" enclosed by these countries combined Exclusive Economic Zones.

This advice provided by the FFA Legal Officer will be followed up by the AusAID-funded Nauru Fisheries Management Institutional Strengthening Project in drafting new regulations, or insertions into the Act, for consideration by Government. The project will also help the Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources Authority to implement these new measures, including strengthening fisheries monitoring  and licencing procedures.