SEAFOOD NEWS — A Pacific fisheries bloc has unanimously decided to maintain a management system that it says has increased revenue to the islands by more than 500 percent in the past six years.
The Parties to the Nauru Agreement’s Vessel Day Scheme allocates its member countries a number of days per vessel that they can allocate to distant water nations which want to purse seine fish for tuna in their waters.
It is seen as a means of increasing returns and ensuring greater sustainabiliity.
Non-island nations are advocating different approaches, including New Zealand, which this week is promoting its catch based management system to Pacific fisheries ministers.
But the PNA members agreed last week to stay with their VDS system after a review by a New Zealand based company called Toroa Strategy Ltd.
It concluded the VDS is a fully functioning fisheries management regime without peer for its class of fishery.
