Byline: Giff Johnson

PNA buys unique fisheries information management tool

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Republished from Radio New Zealand, 31 December 2019

by Giff Johnson

A fisheries information management system, touted as a key element for Pacific islands to control the tuna fishery, has been purchased by the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA).

Developed by Quick Access Computing of Australia, initially in collaboration with the National Fisheries Authority in Papua New Guinea, the Integrated Fisheries Information Management System (iFIMS) has become the tool used by all members of the PNA to manage the multi-billion dollar skipjack tuna fishery in the western and central Pacific.

PNA leaders had been debating purchasing the system to own it outright for the past two years. PNA ministers at a meeting in September approved the plan to purchase the system, which reportedly has a price tag over $US10 million.

The Parties to the Nauru Agreement building under construction in Majuro. Photo: Giff Johnson.

PNA recently established a new company in the Marshall Islands, FIMS Inc, to manage the system, said FIMS board chair Mathew Chigiyal, who works for the National Oceanic Resource Management Authority in the Federated States of Micronesia.

The change in ownership of the fisheries information management system will not affect fisheries departments, industry and other existing users, who would continue receiving services as valued clients, said Mr Chigiyal.

The iFIMS system was described last year as a “game-changer” by PNA chief executive Ludwig Kumoru.

“We are able to control and manage our fishery because we now control the information through iFIMS,” he said.

For decades, Pacific Island fisheries officials were “driving blind” for lack of information on the commercial tuna fishery they were mandated to manage.

Catch data, vessel locations, transshipment activity, use of fish aggregating devices – this and more was controlled by fishing nations, with little information available to inform management decisions by island fisheries departments about their resources.

The development of iFIMS, however, revolutionised management of the tuna fishery by PNA. The system was initially developed by Papua New Guinea’s National Fisheries Authority (NFA). It now contains sections for data for the NFA, PNA, fishing industry and flag states that have oversight of fishing fleets.

“This is the world’s first information platform that integrates fisheries management, compliance and marketing,” said NFA vessel monitoring system manager David Karis, who developed the web-based platform.

Prior to electronic reporting, it could take three to four months for daily catch logs filled out by purse seine vessel captains to arrive to fisheries managers in the region.

“Now, through iFIMS, we have this information in real time,” said Mr Karis.

“About 240 purse seiners are reporting real time catch data daily.”

Marshall Islands push for better tuna data

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Republished from Radio New Zealand, 27 December 2019

by Giff Johnson

Majuro – Despite millions of pounds of tuna transshipped through Pacific island ports, nobody has a precise count of the tonnage.

The entire system for both industry and island fisheries managers revolves around estimates of the tonnage – a deficiency the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority is attempting to remedy.

“Knowing how much fish a purse seiner really caught is not an easy task, not for industry or for the authorities,” said Francisco Blaha, Offshore Fisheries Advisor at the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority [MIMRA] in Majuro. “Traditional scales don’t work on board, and getting fish into low temperatures as soon as possible is fundamental for food safety and quality particularly when you have a big set of over 100 tons in the water.”

As a result, tuna boat captains and fisheries observers work on estimates. “While they are very good, it is still an estimate,” said Mr Blaha. “Only once the fish is unloaded for ‘weigh in’ generally at the cannery, or sometimes before containerization do we get to know the real verified weights.”

But, he added, this often happens months after the tuna is caught and the catch tonnage data may never actually be seen by the island fisheries managers. Mr Blaha, an experienced commercial fisherman whose position in Majuro is supported by the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said this has negative implications for stock assessments and fisheries assessments, but also financial impacts for the fishing crew.

Offshore Fisheries Advisor Francisco Blaha (right) on board a purse seiner in Majuro. Photo: Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority.

Gaining accurate weights is good for everyone since “weights are fundamental and benefit all sorts of fisheries decision making,” said Mr Blaha, who ticked off those interested in catch weights: crew and skipper who are paid partly based on the volume of fish caught; vessel managers who deal with profitability and insurance issues; carrier vessels that deliver the tuna to canneries; and scientists and regulators who generate stock assessments and advice about allowable catch levels. “Quite simply, the more accurate the data, the better decision making,” he said.

Majuro is currently the busiest tuna transshipment port in the world, with over 400 purse seiners annually transshipping about 300,000 tons of tuna. The process of transferring between 800 and 1,700 metric tons of fish from purse seiner to carrier vessel can take up to a week and involves putting the frozen fish in nets and hoisting them into the carrier from the deck of the purse seiner.

MIMRA science and boarding officers saw transshipment operations as an excellent opportunity to verify the weights caught by purse seiners by weighing each the of the nets with frozen fish as they are transshipped using hanging scales attached to the hooks of the cranes used during the operation.

MIMRA gained support from the Forum Fisheries Agency [FFA0] and Pacific Community [SPC] to research the feasibility of the concept and to evaluate what type of hanging crane scales will do the job best.

Last month, MIMRA started what is believed to be a world-first research program to determine the best system for weighing fish coming off a purse seiner to a carrier vessel. A team composed of FFA, SPC and MIMRA launched the testing of four different types of remotely operated electronic crane scales during the transshipment of a Marshall Islands flagged tuna vessel.

Mr Blaha said they evaluated each model against attributes such as precision, robustness and ease of use, battery performance, recyclability, and price and connectivity.

“The results will benefit not only the Marshall Islands but the whole region as there is transshipment activity in Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands,” said Mr Blaha.

The work is expected to continue in 2020 with the general aim of standardizing the use of crane scales for monitoring the weights of all tuna transshipped in the region. It has additional benefit for management and data acquisition for port monitoring operations, he said.

Major fisheries meeting opens in Majuro

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Republished from Marianas Variety, 27 September 2018

MAJURO — Pacific islands fisheries officials have a big agenda for this week’s Technical and Compliance Committee of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission meeting that opened in Majuro Wednesday.

But for many of the smaller islands, no issue is more pressing than the lack of capacity to ensure their islands are complying with an increasing load of fisheries management requirements, said Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority Director Glen Joseph in the lead up to the meeting that started Wednesday and continues through next Tuesday in Majuro.

The Technical and Compliance Committee or TCC addresses a range of tuna management issues. Recommendations of the TCC feed into the WCPFC’s annual meeting in December, being held in Hawaii this year. Pacific island fisheries officials met most of last week leading up to Wednesday’s opening to prepare for the talks. Tuesday featured a one-day meeting of the intercessional working group on a compliance monitoring scheme and next Wednesday is a one-day meeting of the FAD management options intercessional working group.

WCPFC talks in Marujo this week.
Credit: Hilary Hosia

Joseph said he and other Forum Fisheries Agency or FFA members want the WCPFC to take up the issue of “capacity” in the islands as part of the overall compliance scheme. “We are dealing with 40 measures, 10 resolutions and related rules for the WCPFC that we need to comply with,” Joseph said. “It’s a problem of (not having) a level playing field,” he said. “We lack the capacity of other (developed) nations around the table.”

In addition to this concern, Joseph highlighted three additional issues high on the agenda of FFA nations:

  • • Tuna transshipment on the high seas. While purse seiners fishing in the region largely transship in port where catches are monitored, a large volume of long line catch transshipment is conducted on the high seas. This means important catch data is not monitored, leaving serious gaps in stock assessments.
  • • Observer safety. Fine-tuning an observer safety measure adopted by the WCPFC in 2016 is essential, he said. “We need more implementation to ensure observer safety,” Joseph said. “There is still a problem with treatment of observers (on vessels).”
  • • Illegal, unreported and unregulated or IUU fishing. “The overarching concern is illegal fishing, but IUU includes ocean pollution, observer treatment, transnational crime, smuggling of goods,” Joseph said. “Everything comes under IUU.”

The TCC meeting that continues through Tuesday is one of two major committees of the WCPFC. The other is the Scientific Committee. Both meet in the lead up to the WCPFC annual meeting, where conservation and management measures are considered by the more than 30-member nations.