How the Pacific Protects Its Fisheries

The challenge of achieving sustainable ocean governance is growing in the 21st century, as the negative impacts of environmental destruction, over-exploitation, and climate change place a high degree of stress on marine ecosystems.

The framework convention for ocean governance, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), was negotiated in the 1970s and ‘80s. At the time, its provisions on environmental protection, common resource ownership, and the 200 nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) were novel and radical additions to global commons governance. The so-called “Constitution for the Oceans” established the basic rights and obligations of different groups in the international community, including coastal states, flag states, port states, and landlocked states. UNCLOS covers all major ocean activities, and divides ocean space into global commons and national zones of control. The negotiation and entry into force of UNCLOS represented a major accomplishment for the international community, and the larger project of global governance. The principles, norms, rights, and duties enshrined in UNCLOS serve as a guide for the collective management of common resources by states.

Now, some 40 years after the UNCLOS negotiations ended, the world has become significantly more dynamic in terms of the pace and scale of ecosystem change, the increasing demand for marine resources, and the ever-evolving competition between great powers, all of which are both maritime and coastal states. Can UNCLOS – an institution designed in another era, and with serious implementation challenges – promote conservation and sustainability in this changed and changing world?

The western and central Pacific Ocean provides an important test case for this question, offering lessons through both its successes and weaknesses in the face of climate change, intensifying resource extraction, and geopolitical pressure. This region is home to some of the most important and lucrative global stocks of tuna, which migrate through both the EEZs of small island states and the high seas. The potential for unsustainable exploitation is high in a region where distances are vast, enforcement resources are limited, and the economic stakes are substantial.

UNCLOS gives coastal states such as the Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) the exclusive right to explore, exploit, control, and manage the living resources (fish) in their 200 nautical mile EEZs. Foreign fishers must receive permission, typically through a license or permit, to access EEZ fisheries. Because the PSIDS do not have the capacity to fully exploit their valuable EEZ fisheries, they sell licenses to foreign long-distance fishers, most of whom come from China, South Korea, Japan, Spain, and Taiwan. The PSIDS have strong incentives to ensure that their EEZ fisheries are exploited sustainably: Access fees constitute a significant portion of their annual revenue, and the marine environment is connected to important parts of their cultural identity.

The high seas are another matter. While coastal states create and enforce regulations for their EEZs, UNCLOS requires states with an interest in a high seas fishery – either because they fish there or have an adjacent EEZ – to cooperatively manage that fishery through a Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO). One of roughly 17 RFMOs (depending on how you count) operating worldwide, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) is an intergovernmental organization through which member states make collective decisions about high seas fisheries management.

RFMOs as a whole have been widely criticized for failing to achieve sustainability. Fundamental and recurring problems include regulatory capture by the fishing industry, opt-out provisions and veto players, and the herculean task of monitoring vast swaths of the ocean. Collective management by states, which may see themselves as competing with one another for access to fish, creates a natural conflict of interest between perceived national interests and conservation of the resource.

Despite these obstacles, the PSIDS have developed unique strategies and approaches, operating within the framework of UNCLOS, to strengthen marine resource management in the western and central Pacific. Their coherence and cooperation as a region, in terms of interests, institutions, and strategy, strengthens the normative and practical power of the WCPFC to regulate fisheries for conservation and sustainability.

Special Challenge of Western and Central Pacific Fisheries

The most valuable fisheries in the region are four types of tuna: skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye, and albacore. The vast majority of this tuna – by volume and by value – is caught within the EEZs of the PSIDS. Although many of these island states have, or are working to build, domestic fishing fleets, the bulk of commercial tuna extraction is done by long-distance fishing fleets. China, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea each have hundreds of boats registered in Pacific RFMOs, including both fishing and transshipment vessels. Many of these vessels are registered under the national flag of their home countries, and subsidy programs – especially fuel subsidies – represent an important form of state support for long-distance fishing. The term “distant water fishing nations” captures the idea that national fishers, flying national flags, represent the interests of their home state in far off waters.

As demand in domestic markets grows, so too does the pressure on the fisheries of the western and central Pacific. Between 1992 and 2012, reported tuna catches in the region more than doubled.

The technology of tuna fishing has not changed much, but innovations in enabling technology mean that tuna extraction is easier than ever. Purse seiners dominate the fishing effort, and deploy tens of thousands of “Fish Aggregation Devices” in the western and central Pacific every year. The devices are relatively simple floating objects, often equipped with satellite tags and echo sounders so that purse seiners can easily find the schools that have formed around them. Longline fishers represent a small proportion of the catch volume, but they tend to target higher stocks, and are more likely to fish in the high seas. The use of onboard freezers and transshipment vessels means that longliners can stay out to sea longer, and catch more, without direct oversight by fisheries regulators.

Although all these vessels are required to use Automatic Identification System and Vessel Monitoring System devices, these are relatively easy to turn off, or spoof, to ensure that no one is actually watching what is happening on and under the waves. In the 21st century Pacific Ocean, it’s easy to find the fish but hard to find the fishers.

This situation – high demand, external actors, and technological systems that favor extraction over monitoring – creates special challenges for the WCPFC, whose decisions about conservation and management are the front line against illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing in the region.

Efforts and Innovations in Regional Governance

Although UNCLOS establishes a legal framework for how states should cooperate to sustainably govern fish stocks, it is ultimately up to states to make and enforce the specific rules that shape fishing behavior. This includes states acting unilaterally, to make and enforce rules in their coastal waters and over their flagged ships, as well as multilaterally through RFMOs. The fact that the real decision-making authority on fisheries is delegated to states presents both risks and opportunities. On one hand, states (and fishers) focused on economic development may over-exploit their own domestic fisheries. In the high seas, national competitive pressures, regulatory capture, and the costs of long-distance monitoring may pressure states to construct a weak regulatory framework, or one that is barely enforced. On the other hand, the delegation of authority to states creates opportunities for individual states or regions to take bold progressive steps to improve fisheries governance. The history of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) illustrates both types of practices.

In many of the areas where fisheries management is improving, it is the result of coordinated and concerted efforts on the part of regional governments. The PSIDS are an especially influential coalition in pushing for the progressive development of ocean governance more generally. They are coordinating in multiple evolving areas, including maritime boundary delimitation in the face of sea level rise and the negotiations for a new instrument to govern “Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.” Nauru, Tonga, and Kiribati are sponsoring mining projects in the international seabed, and Nauru has formally triggered a rule requiring the International Seabed Authority to fast track the rule-making for commercial-scale exploitation. In all these cases, the PSIDS are contributing to the emergence of new, and in many cases better, rules and norms for ocean use. So it is not surprising that the RFMO encompassing the national and regional fisheries of the PSIDS would be a site of innovation.

In order to effectively manage their EEZs, and prevent the destruction of adjacent high seas fisheries, the PSIDS have found ways to work together, work smarter, and broker help from outside powers and private actors. In doing so, they have both reflected and reaffirmed the normative strength of contemporary fisheries governance principles.

The WCPFC was established only in 2005, but it builds on a history of cooperative approaches to fisheries management in the region. The WCPFC has 26 members, over half of which are PSIDs, and seven “cooperating non-members” that agree to abide by WCPFC conservation and management measures, but do not participate in its formal decision-making. Beside the PSIDS, the other members of the WCPFC include large maritime states, such as the United States, Japan, China, and the European Union. Members are interested in a broad region: WCPFC jurisdiction covers a significant portion of Pacific high seas, as well as the adjacent EEZs of the PSIDs. Four high seas “pockets” in the region are entirely surrounded by EEZ, and hence closely connected to the waters and ecosystems of the PSIDS.

The close relationship between the PSIDS, the WCPFC, and the maritime geography of the region, means that fisheries governance operates somewhat like a club of member states, all of which have strong economic, political, and cultural motivations for sustainability. The PSIDS operate in a club-like way in two senses: their shared commitment to international rules and their ability to provide excludable benefits to those that follow the rules. The fact that tuna migrate in and out of large Pacific EEZs gives the PSIDS special leverage over fishers, and access to their EEZs is often explicitly conditioned on proof that high seas fishing was done legally. What constitutes “legal” high seas fishing is determined through the WCPFC, which the PSIDS have significant influence over. Member states have adopted a wide array of conservation and management measures, including gear restrictions, seasonal and zonal closures, and effort limits. These measures apply to approximately 3,500 vessels registered to fish in the WCPFC zone, the majority of which wish to operate in the EEZs of the PSIDS.

The size of the jurisdiction zone and the limited resources of the PSIDS make compliance, monitoring, and verification measures especially critical for the success of the WCPFC. Transshipment, fuel subsidies, and various enabling technologies allow fishers to stay away from coasts, ports, and other sites of potential enforcement. As such, WCPFC regulatory measures include requirements for Vessel Monitoring Systems and shipboard observers, and the WCPFC maintains a “black list” of vessels that, because of past illegal activity, are prohibited from fishing in the zone. Theoretically, compliance could be verified in ports, but transshipment is so common that the majority of the catch is offloaded in ports outside the region.

Using the legal authority created by the 1995 Straddling Fish Stocks Agreement, the WCPFC has also designated 14 of its members as “authorized inspectors,” who can board and inspect fishing vessels from any WCPFC member state. High seas enforcement vessels must be registered with the WCPFC, and follow specific regulations for boarding, inspecting, and reporting violations. Some of the biggest long-distance fishing nations, such as China, have not contributed to this collective enforcement effort.

Overall, high seas boarding is neither common nor consistent in the WCPFC zone because of the lack of dedicated enforcement resources. The United States – which still controls colonial territories in the Pacific – plays an important supporting role, with an annual enforcement surge coordinated with the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), a regional group focused on fisheries management. Ship-rider agreements allow U.S. Coast Guard vessels to patrol and enforce fisheries regulations within the EEZs of the PSIDS.

The FFA plays a key role in maximizing the efficiency of enforcement efforts. Headquartered in the Solomon Islands, the FFA is made up of 17 PSIDS plus Australia and New Zealand. Its activities include monitoring and disseminating information from Vessel Monitoring System feeds, providing technical advice and capacity building, and coordinating joint surveillance operations. Although the two organizations are distinct, FFA members have a special chamber in the WCPFC, and the agency’s activities are oriented toward bolstering the enforcement of WCPFC regulations.

The WCPFC and its members have been active in updating conservation and management measures, maximizing limited enforcement resources, and ensuring that both EEZs and high seas areas within its jurisdiction are surveilled and well-regulated. The coherence and focus on regional states, and their willingness to work with external partners and condition access to their domestic waters, have allowed the PSIDS and the WCPFC to overcome many of the recurring issues faced by RFMOs generally.

Future Challenges in Fisheries Governance and Management

The regulatory efforts of the WCPFC are ultimately bound by the legal framework of UNCLOS. The foundational governance landscape for fisheries in the western and central Pacific is unlikely to change, as UNCLOS and associated agreements are highly entrenched. This limits the possibilities for conservation, preservation, and sustainable use, in part because of a clear and enduring line between marine environmental protection and fisheries management.

The best (or worst) example are the ongoing “Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction” negotiations, which are an attempt to fill in several gaps left by UNCLOS for achieving conservation and sustainable use of marine natural resources in the ocean commons. Although IUU fishing clearly impacts marine biodiversity, negotiating states agreed in advance that any new treaty “should not undermine” existing instruments, frameworks, and bodies, such as RFMOs. In other words, there cannot and will not be an external, or hierarchical, source of biodiversity-related mandates to bind and shape the activities of RFMOs.

The framework of international fisheries governance, including EEZs, the Fish Stocks Agreement, and RFMOs, delegates a significant amount of authority and responsibilities to individual states and small groups of states. It is imperative to identify ways to advance and improve fisheries governance within this institutional framework.

The PSIDS and WCPFC offer important lessons in this regard, most notably in the way that authority and implementation are distributed among interested parties. The PSIDS, which have strong shared interests in sustainable use of marine resources, operate cooperatively through both the FFA and the WCPFC. Individually, these states use access to their domestic fisheries as leverage over distant water fishers who may otherwise flout the rules on the high seas. The PSIDS have also worked within the legal framework of the Fish Stocks Agreement, and created specific bilateral and multilateral agreements, to enable enforcement by extra-regional powers like the United States. The cumulative result of these distributed efforts is that fishers in the WCPFC region face strong pressures for compliance.

But the WCPFC and other RFMOs face a new and powerful set of challenges related to climate change. In addition to the direct threats to PSIDS themselves from sea level rise, the effects of ocean acidification and especially ocean warming are likely to alter the productivity and distribution of fish stocks. Shifting migratory patterns mean that valuable stocks will move in, out, and between EEZs, redistributing profits and rents among users and sovereign rights holders. Around the world, shifting and fluctuating stocks can increase the risk of conflict over fisheries, especially as fishers attempt to follow stocks to new jurisdictions. Warming and acidification also create obstacles to reliable stock assessment, and may put more pressure on regionally-determined catch allotments.

Whether the WCPFC is able to respond effectively to these new realities will depend in part on the degree to which the PSIDS can retain their existing capabilities, coherence, and focus on regional fisheries.