The Philippines' tuna industry is requesting that the national government arrange bilateral fishing access agreements with other tuna-abundant countries to counterbalance the industry's slowed production due to the fishing ban in areas of the Pacific Ocean.
Bayani B Fredeluces, executive director of the Socsargen Federation of Fishing and Allied Industries, said the ban imposed by the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) – which is being backed and enforced by the government – is adversely impacting the operations of tuna fishing companies.
Local fishing companies can fish in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea's waters if they have onshore investments in those countries.
In December 2008, WCPFC approved the closure in Busan, South Korea, in a document called "Conservation and Management Measure for bigeye and yellowfin tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean."
The closure for purse seine fishing took effect on January 1, 2010 and runs through 2012. It spans two pockets of the high seas in the western and eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean.
Fredeluces has said that an initial study by the local fishing federation forecasted that, due to the ban, tuna catch from purse seine fishing would fall by 10-20 percent.
The value of the Philippines' tuna exports dropped by a fifth last year versus 2008 partly resulting from a ban on fish aggregating devices (FADs) in the Pacific Ocean. WCPFC pushed the ban on in August to September in an effort to conserve yellowfin and bigeye tuna stocks.
Source: Fish Information and Services (FIS)