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 This short term ban will end when these Regulations are repealed on October 1 2009 and will be replaced on 1st January 2010 by the Nauru Fisheries (PNA 3rd Implementing Arrangement) Regulations 2009, which include a 3 month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



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.