Nauru is now a discard-free fishing zone

The problem of regulatory discards – of fish being thrown away at sea after being caught because of catch quotas or size limits – is a major global topic of concern at the moment, especially in Europe.

In the UK, the celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has led a campaign against the “unethical and wasteful practice” of discarding fish at sea through a hard-hitting series of TV documentaries. Today, the EU Fisheries commissioner, Maria Damanaki, unveiled a plan to amend the EU Common Fisheries Policy and reduce discards. 

Well, the Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources Authority wants to make an announcement: 

Nauru is already a discard-free fishing zone.

 

There are two main fisheries in Nauru’s 320,000 square kilometres of fisheries waters:

The artisanal fishery, with Nauruans operating small boats within territorial waters close to shore, is a discard-free fishery simply because Nauruans do not waste fish. Everything is taken home. Some is sold. Some is given to the extended family and friends, and the rest is consumed directly.

The tuna purse-seine fishery operating offshore within the exclusive economic zone is a much larger fishery. Fish that were too small to fetch a good price at market used to be occasionally discarded in favour of larger fish (a process known as “highgrading”). But since the start of 2010 Nauru, along with the other Parties to the Nauru Agreement, has required that all catch be retained on board and landed and has required a Pacific Island observer to be aboard each purse-seine vessel at all times to ensure that this, and other national regulatory measures, are followed.

In short, the small island developing nation of Nauru is moving towards the head of the pack when it comes to applying “best practice” in oceanic fisheries management. Perhaps this is the result of small size – small administrations in small nations have fewer layers insulating the people from top-level decision-makers, and are relatively quick on their toes. Or perhaps it is the result of the excellent service that Nauru receives as a result of sharing and pooling marine management and assessment advisory and support services in partnership with its small-island neighbours.

Nauru closes EEZ to purse-seine fishing

The small island nation of Nauru has closed its marine exclusive economic zone to fishing by bilaterally licenced foreign tuna purse-seiners until the end of December, in order to avoid exceeding its national allowable effort limit for the 2010 fishing season.

“This is not a complete closure of all purse-seining in Nauru waters” explained Nauru’s Oceanic Manager Terry Amram. “Purse-seiners licenced under the FSM Arrangement and the US Multilateral Treaty can still operate in Nauru because they are controlled by a different management system which is implemented regionally. Also, if nationally-licenced vessels are able to obtain effort allocations transferred from other Pacific Island countries with under-used quota they will still be allowed some fishing”.

Mr Amram said that 2010 had been an exceptionally good year for tuna fishing in Nauru, and purse-seiners had already caught at least as much fish up to the end of August as the catch from Nauru waters in the whole of 2009 or 2008.


Vessel Monitoring System shot of the Nauru
EEZ before the closure of the zone to
bilaterally licenced purse-seiners



Vessel Monitoring System shot of the Nauru
EEZ after the closure of the zone to
bilaterally licenced purse-seiners. The track
shown is of a vessel which had
purchased additional days fishing
transferred from the allocation of
another Pacific island country

“We are not being unfair. They have already had their money’s worth of opportunities to fish”, said the CEO of the Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources Authority Charleston Deiye. “We have an obligation to apply the national Party Allowable Effort (PAE) limits agreed under the Palau Arrangement to conserve bigeye tuna, and we also have an obligation to the people of Nauru not to devalue fisheries resource rents from our EEZ.”

Mr Deiye explained that Nauru, like other members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), had agreed to keep purse-seine fishing capped at levels intended maintain the long-term sustainability of the western Pacific bigeye tuna stock, and that Nauru, like the other Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), was implementing this commitment through a subregional vessel-days scheme (VDS).

Vessel Days Scheme

The Palau Arrangement VDS sets a total allowable effort (TAE) for purse-seine fishing within the combined EEZs of the PNA countries (Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu), and this TAE is split among the PNA EEZs according to a formula based on historical fishing effort and the estimated tuna biomass in each zone.

The Palau Arrangement VDS also takes account of the highly migratory nature of tuna stocks and the shifts in availability of tuna across the region from year to year as a result of the El Nino Southern Oscillation. It allows PNA countries to transfer some of their PAE allocation to other PNA countries, depending on the year-to-year geographical variation in tuna fisheries and stocks, provided the overall regional TAE is not exceeded.

In previous years the Palau Arrangement also allowed PNA countries to “draw down” vessel days allocations from their future entitlements, but the Arrangement has now been tightened up and any national overruns now need to be made up by transfers from other countries with underused PAEs.

Mr Deiye said “Nauru has never run out of fishing days before. But there has been exceptional fishing effort in Nauru waters in 2010 and so we have had to stop open fishing and activate vessel-days trading for vessels that want to continue fishing”.

This is also the first time that vessel-days trading has occurred in the PNA region. The significance of this is not likely to be lost on the other members of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission at its annual meeting in Honolulu in December, some of whom have cast doubt on the effectiveness of the PNA Vessel Days Scheme to manage purse-seine effort. This action by Nauru demonstrates that PNA countries can indeed make hard decisions not only collectively but also individually.

Increasing catch

There are likely to be more hard decisions to come. 2009 was a record year for the catch of tuna from the Western and Central Pacific Ocean, most of it taken by purse-seiners. Charleston Deiye says, “at the regional level we’ve already restricted fishing on the high seas. We’ve already restricted fishing on FADs. We’ve already restricted effort in PNA zones. If 2010 turns out to be another record catch year, which is looking likely, then we’re going to have to go even further with restrictions.”

Declining value

The bottom line for tiny Nauru – the smallest island member of the United Nations, and a country that is more dependent on national revenue from tuna fishing than any other – is not just maintaining the long-term sustainability of their key national resource, but also developing national income from that resource. As Terry Amram explains; “ever-expanding catches depress the world market price for tuna and reduce the ability of vessels to pay higher access fees. We rely on this revenue. It is clearly in our best interests to seek a higher rate of return for each unit of catch, when sustainability concerns require us to place hard limits on the level of fishing.”

Charleston Deiye adds “There are plenty of purse-seiners out there, but there is not plenty of fish. And the fact that the western tropical Pacific region has looked after its resource better than most means that more and more boats are knocking on our doors. If we had ignored our obligations and not closed the EEZ or not started vessel-days trading, the licence fees from the total of our bilateral access arrangements would have dropped to below 4% of the landed value of the estimated catch. This is at a time when we consider 8% to be the standard, and we are aiming for 10%”.
Mr Deiye explained that some fleets are providing a fairer return for fishing opportunities in Nauru, notably New Zealand, the European Union and Japan, but that these vessels are only a minor proportion of the total.

Defining the vessel-day
As if driving the national return on Nauru’s fish below 4% isn’t enough, some major fleets are trying to impose their own definition of a “fishing day” on Nauru, and claiming that the majority of the time that they spend within the Nauru EEZ is not actually fishing. Mr Deiye says that he has pointed out to them that they are not fishing in their own waters, they are fishing in Nauru’s EEZ, and that the Nauru definition of fishing applies. This definition has been in the Nauru Fisheries Act for 13 years and has always been included in the licencing agreements with these fleets. What is more, this is a definition that is taken from the Harmonised Minimum Terms and Conditions for access by foreign fishing vessels and agreed by all member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency for universal application across the FFA region.

He says “Essentially, if you drop your net in Nauru waters during any one calendar day then that is a fishing day. If you search for fish that is a fishing day. The only days that count as non-fishing days are if you are in transit or steaming home with your gear stowed, or if you are in port, or if there is a bona-fide emergency. This was known in advance, and I am getting impatient with the fleets that keep trying to persuade us to use their own definition and avoid paying for the transfer of fishing opportunities from other PNA countries. If we had used their definition when we designed the VDS in the first place then that would have been another matter. But we originally assessed sustainability using the regionally-agreed definition of fishing."

"Since the whole point of the VDS is to avoid overfishing, a more lenient definition of non-fishing days in the beginning would actually have resulted in a smaller number of fishing days being allocated under the PAE and they would have been back to square one. You can't use one definition to set the limit and then use another definition when accounting under it."

The future

When it comes to future fishing seasons, Nauru will be allocating the limited opportunities to fish in Nauru waters only to those foreign fleets that provide the best return to Nauru. “And I don’t just mean access revenue,” Mr Deiye says. “I am mean real development – about allowing us equity in fishing operations and onshore processing and about investment in Nauru-based operations, or even about using our ownership of fishing opportunities in Nauru waters as equity itself. We want to see Nauruans getting increasingly involved in the global tuna industry, processing fish for export and owning boats. This is a high capital business. It is a steep hill for a very small country like ours to climb, but if we organise joint ventures with our small-island neighbours and if we have the active support of our foreign fishing partners, then I believe we can get there. We’re not looking for free handouts. We’re looking to leverage our ownership of the fishing opportunities within Nauru waters to develop Nauruan business opportunities”.

Nauru slams interpretation of Future of Pacific Fisheries Report

The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) has just issued a corporate press release publicising the presentation to its governing council this week of a study on the Future of Pacific Fisheries. This study was  commissioned by SPC and the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and carried out by consultants with the assistance of an independent steering committee and group of experts in consultation with Pacific Island specialists.

Although the study was published earlier in the year and presented to the SPC Heads of Fisheries, the Forum Fisheries Committee and the Pacific Islands Forum meetings, this was the first time that it had been presented to the SPC's Committee of Representatives of Governments and Administrations.

The SPC press release on this event has since received wide coverage in the regional and international press.
Mr. Charleston Deiye the CEO of The Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources Authority, said today "We have welcomed “the future of fisheries” study report, but we have to clarify generalizations and apparent misconceptions expressed in the recent media coverage - perceptions that suggest there is a regional problem and an inability of Pacific Island Nations to manage resources".

Most media coverage was based on excerpts of the SPC press release, which was titled “Fisheries face collapse without strategic action”. This press release by the SPC said in its introduction: "A major study of the future of pacific island fisheries indicates that, without concerted strategic action now, fisheries across the region face collapse within the next 25 years”.

Mr Deiye explained that one of the aims of the overall SPC/FFA Future of Fisheries Study is actually to present three scenarios for the future – “worst - if current systems don’t work”, “business as usual” and “best, if we take additional actions”. The report is essentially about identifying the actions that will need to be taken to avoid the worst case scenario in 25 years time when populations are projected to double and fishery resources - particularly coastal fishery resources - will face depletion if existing and proposed governance regimes do not work.

Mr. Deiye pointed out that the "Pacific Islands fisheries, especially artisanal and commercial tuna fisheries of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement*, are today some of the most sustainably-managed and healthy tuna fisheries in the world. There are limits not only on catch, but on effort, and with active participation by coastal states as well as distant water fishing nations through a regional convention - the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention - that fully takes into account the provisions of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement." 

"This is especially so in Nauru and in all the 8 PNA Party Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs), which produce almost 30% of global canning tuna  from well managed tuna stocks. We have progressive domestic and regional management regimes including: 100% VMS coverage, 100% coverage by on-board observers, tuna catch retention, high seas and other area closures, FAD bans, effort controls [VDS], in port transshipping, etc. This we understand is not the case in most other high seas tuna RFMOs outside of our region."

He said: “the small island states in the Pacific also benefit from a very active system of independent regional support for their EEZ fisheries management. The PNA Office, FFA and the SPC Oceanic Fisheries Programme all help to operationalise different aspects of regional fisheries conservation and management measures, and to maintain tight monitoring and control of the tuna fishing activities in our waters. We also get substantial support from third parties, particularly in surveillance.” 

"It worries me", stated Mr. Deiye, "when such positive achievements by these small vulnerable island economies are presented in such a negative light by media. Of course, things may be a lot worse in 25 years time if everything we are doing and planning falls apart. “But we are not expecting that everything falls apart!”

Mr. Deiye said “I have every confidence in the ability of my own Authority and the administrations of my neighboring island countries, and our leaders, to keep these tuna fisheries fully sustainable for the future. It would be a disaster for island people if we didn’t. Sustainable tuna resources are the mainstay of many of our economies."

"I want to also point out that the western tropical Pacific purse-seine fishery is an in-zone rather than a high seas fishery. It is not like most of the tuna fisheries in other oceans. It is already subject to the rule of law. We don't have to hope and pray that we will be allowed to develop high seas governance mechanisms through the WCPFC in order to protect our tuna stocks. We already have regionally-harmonised in-zone governance mechanisms, thanks to the Nauru Agreement and supported by the work of the FFA and the SPC Oceanic Fisheries Programme.”

Trolling for tuna in the Pacific dawn

* The Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) are the Governments of the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu

Parties to the Nauru Agreement meet in Tarawa

The 27th special meeting of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Management of Fisheries of Common Interest (usually known as the "PNA Group") is meeting in Tarawa, Kiribati, at the moment. The meeting will culminate next week in a Ministerial session, where a decision is expected on the form of the institution that will be set up to facilitate the specialised fisheries development aspirations of the PNA Group of countries*

The new PNA institution will facilitate issues such as

• trading tuna fishing allocations (vessel-days) between members - possibly pooling of vessel-days and joint licencing of foreign tuna vessels;
• PNA national observer placements;
• PNA national crew placement aboard licenced tuna fishing vessels

Joint development options for PNA members in the tuna industry will be explored and it is expected that a PNA Tuna Corporation will also be established.

PNA members have already emphasised that this specialised institution will not weaken the role of the Forum Fisheries Agency. The PNA was set up in 1982 and has a long-established role as a specialised sub-group of FFA, concentrating on the management of the purse-seine fishery. However, FFA is an intergovernmental policy-level secretariat, and is not set up to run commercial operations. The new PNA institution will have a structure that facilitates joint commercially-oriented operations.

PNA members will continue to be FFA members and will will continue to draw upon the services that FFA provides to its members, and PNA members will continue to contribute to FFA decisions. The new PNA institution will be complementary and will actually strengthen the ability of the region to make effective decisions concerning the management of western and central Pacific tuna fisheries - decisions such as the FAD-fishing limitation, the high seas pockets closure, the requirement for 100% observer coverage, and the onboard retention of all purse-seine catch that were spearheaded by the PNA in 2007, supported by the FFA membership, and eventually promulgated across the entire WCPFC region.



A tuna purse-seiner



*The PNA Group currently consists of Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

New Fisheries Regulations Approved by Cabinet

The Nauru Government has just approved two sets of new Regulations under the Fisheries Act to implement recent regional decisions improving the management of tuna fisheries in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean and the PNA subregion.

The Nauru Fishing Licence (FAD_Closure) Regulations 2009 give expression to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Ccommission decision (in CMM 2008-01) to ban fishing by purse-seiners on Fish Aggregation Devices and floating objects in the months of August and September 2009. This short term ban will end when these Regulations are repealed on October 1 2009 and will be replaced on 1st January 2010 by the Nauru Fisheries (PNA 3rd Implementing Arrangement) Regulations 2009, which include a 3 month ban by fishing by purse-seiners on Fish Aggregation Devices and floating objects from July to September (inclusive) of each year.

Nauru citizens should note that this FAD fishing ban only applies to industrial purse-seine vessels fishing outside the 12-mile limit of Nauru's Territorial Sea. It does not apply to fishing on the FADs deployed by NFMRA for the use of small-scale fishing boats.

The closure is not because "FADs are bad" but because it allows the PNA countries to fine-tune the industrial fishery catch composition - to reduce the proportion of bigeye and yellowfin and increase the proportion of skipjack in the purse-seine catch. The skipjack stock is in good health, but the industrial catches of bigeye and yellowfin need to be reduced.

FADs are considered to be environmentally-friendly in a coastal, small-scale fishery context. They reduce searching time and thus reduce fuel usage and improve safety at sea. Maintaining and replacing the coastal FADs will be a major part NFMRA's coastal fisheries strategy and contribute to improving Nauru food security.


A fish aggregation device, yesterday


The second set of regulations, the Nauru Fisheries (PNA Third Implementing Arrangement) Regulations 2009, give legal expression in Nauru waters to the Third Implementing Arrangement of the Nauru Agreement and also implement the remainder of Nauru's obligations under WCPFC CMM 2008-01). These Regulations come into force on January 1, 2010.

These Regulations, working in concert with similar regulations enacted by all the countries party to the Nauru Agreement, deny licences to fish within the waters of all PNA countries to any vessel which -

• fishes in the high seas areas enclosed largely by PNA exclusive economic zones (EEZs)
• sets nets on Fish Aggregation Devices (FAD) in the months July-September inclusive
• discards any catch at sea (with certain reasonable exceptions)
• does not carry a certified observer aboard at all times

This arrangement has been described as one of the most potentially effective decisions taken by a regional tuna management arrangement anywhere in the world to date, and the closure of the high seas pockets has been hailed by conservation organisations as a significant step towards effective management and conservation of sustainable regional fish stocks.

Again, these regulations apply only to industrial vessels fishing in the EEZ outside the 12-mile limit of the Nauru Territorial Sea. They do not apply to small-scale nearshore fishing boats.



The two high seas pockets closed by the PNA 3rd Implementing Arrangement



Nauru hands over PNA Chair to Kiribati

The Chairship of the Officials Meeting of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) was handed over by Charleston Deiye - CEO of the Nauru Fisheries and Marine Resources Authority - to Kintoba Tearo, Kiribati's Director of Fisheries, this week at the PNA Annual Meeting in Niue. The Chairship of the PNA Ministerial meeting will be handed over by the Honourable Roland Kun, Minister for Education and Fisheries to Kiribati on 17th May.

The last year, with Nauru in the chair, has been a very significant one for the 8 PNA countries (Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu). The 3rd Implementing Arrangement of the Nauru Agreement was approved by Parties in May 2008 and the Vessel Days Scheme under the Palau Arrangement swung into gear.

These new measures apply several innovative and forward-looking actions to promote the conservation and management of the tuna stocks on which the PNA countries depend. These include:

• a major change in the way that fishing opportunities are allocated, replacing flag-based licence-limits with zone-based fishing days limits, thus shifting the balance of control away from foreign fleets towards Pacific Island EEZ custodians;
• closing two significant high seas areas to all forms of tuna fishing from January 1, 2010 - a measure that was later taken up by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting in December 2008,
• a ban on fishing on drifting fish aggregation devices for part of each year, to reduce the impact of purse-seine fishing on juvenile bigeye tuna - a species threatened by overfishing.

The battle is not yet over. It is likely that further restrictions will be needed to ensure that the impact of fishing - particularly longline fishing - on bigeye tuna is reduced to acceptable levels, and there still remain some purse-seine vessels - flagged by powerful geopolitical interests - that need to be included in the effort limits under the Vessel Days Scheme.

Nauru wishes Kiribati all the best in chairing the PNA group through to May 2010. Nauru will continue to play a full part in the discussion and the implementation of further innovations in the drive to both protect our tuna, and to develop optimum benefit from the Pacific Islands regional resource through increasing cooperation with our PNA neighbours.

Nauru is one of the most tuna-dependent economies in the world, as well as one of the world's smallest countries, and joint action within the PNA gives us considerably more bargaining power in the task of developing sustainable national income from what is now the biggest tuna fishery in the world.



Symbols of the two cornerstones of the Nauru economy



New foreign fishing regulations in process

Nauru is one of the countries party to the 1982 "Nauru Agreement Concerning Cooperation in the Management of Fisheries of Common Interest", along with the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu. 

The Nauru Agreement is very influential. Over the years, the Agreement has provided most of the impetus for improving the management of purse-seine tuna fisheries in the western tropical Pacific region, both at the policy level, and the detailed practical level through its various Implementing Arrangements.

The main point of the Nauru Agreement is that all eight Parties are applying the same management measures, and the same terms and conditions for access, to all tuna purse-seine vessels fishing in their waters. PNA (Parties to the Nauru Agreement) waters cover most of the best purse-seine fishing areas in the Western Pacific (a total of 15 million square kilometres), and thus through sub-regional cooperation, the PNA can essentially control the management of this fishery.

What is particularly significant is that the Western Pacific Tropical tuna fishery is in better shape than any other tuna fishery in the world. Although Pacific Island countries have concerns that Bigeye Tuna will become overfished if fishing effort is not reduced, overall these fisheries are not overfished - the skipjack stock in particular (the main tuna stock) is in good health - and actions are already being taken to reduce the impact on bigeye tuna to avoid it becoming overfished. The relative health of these Pacific fisheries is due in no small part to the strong control exerted by coastal States, particularly the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, whereas tuna fisheries management in other regions is dominated by industrial fishing interests.

The PNA countries jointly agreed on the PNA third Implementing Arrangement at a PNA Ministers Meeting held in Palau in May 2008. Amongst other things, they agreed that any vessel found fishing for tuna in high seas areas enclosed by PNA exclusive economic zones would have its licences to fish in all PNA EEZs cancelled. There is also a ban on using drifting Fish Aggregation Devices for 3 months of the year and a requirement for purse-seiners to carry an observer aboard at all times. These measures will come into force on January 1st 2010.

There is a long lead-time between the signing of the agreement and its coming-into-force because it will take some time for regional and national observer programmes to gear up for 100% purse-seine coverage (currently it is around 20%) and to get the necessary regulations in place.

NFMRA is currently in the process of ensuring that Nauru can play its full part in this Agreement. A national observer programme is being started up, including the appointment of an Observer Programme Manager and obtaining accredited training for a cadre of Nauru observers, and also in developing regulations to put the 3rd Implementing Arrangement into practice.

These regulations have already been drafted with the assistance of Parliamentary Counsel and the Forum Fisheries Agency, and should be presented to Cabinet shortly. They will be posted on this website as soon as they are approved. However, the basic framework of the 3rd Implementing Arrangement is already agreed and it only remains to enact this under Nauru law.

Another shorter, temporary, set of regulations, to implement an additional measure agreed within the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission - to prohibit purse-seiners fishing on drifting FADs and other floating objects during the months of August and September 2009 - will also be presented to Cabinet for approval.

These new conditions will subsequently be inserted in the conditions of all licences to fish in the Nauru EEZ by foreign fishing vessels.

It should be noted that Nauru small scale fishing boats and fishers are exempt from all of these rules, which are intended to tighten up controls on large-scale industrial fishing across the western pacific sub-region. And these measures will not limit the rights of PNA members, including Nauru, to increasingly participate in the industrial fishery in the PNA area.


FAD buoys aboard a purse-seiner



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.