467

GeoJoumal 4.5 467-478/1980 © Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft - Wiesbaden

Fish, Fishing, and Sea Boundaries: Tuna Stocks and Fishing Policies in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific * Bardach, i.E., Research Associate, Resource Systems Institute East-West Center, and Adjunct Professor, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96848, USA Matsuda, Y., Research Fellow, Environment and Policy Institute, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii, 96848, USA

Abstract: The distribution of various tuna species in the Pacific Ocean is bounded by the 20°C isotherm while their migrations are influenced by the major current systems and other oceanographic parameters which are here described. Tuna fisheries are important for the island nations of the tropical Pacific with Japan, the USA, Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines prominently engaged in them. The fishery relies on Iongline, bait-dependent pole and line and purse seining techniques. The various tuna species are among the highest priced fishery commodities vigorously entering international trade in the frozen state or canned. However, with 200 nautical mile extended economic zones now being customary international law, new patterns of resource ownership and management needs have arisen that call for enhanced international cooperation in fisheries research and in surveillance and enforcement; a discussion of possible patterns for such cooperation terminates this article.

Introduction The total world fish catch in 1977 was 73.5 million metric tons (MMT). However, roughly 25 MMT of it was reduced to meal and oil and did not serve for direct human consumption (Holt 1979). The rest represented about 15 % (net weight) of the world's consumption of animal flesh. 2.3 MMT or 3.1% of the total catch were tunas, and about half of them were taken in the tropical and subtropical Pacific. Tuna are high priced fish and if one considered value rather than tonnage, they would contribute near 10 % of the total worth of the global fish catch. Tunas migrate in shoals over large distances to feed or to spawn with special oceanographic conditionsdetermining their whereabouts in the upper layer of the sea. On their migrations they are bound to pass through the ocean spaces of two or more nations and as they are mostly caught by fishing fleets of technologically advanced, so-called distant water, fishing nations such as Japan, USA, Taiwan and Korea, their management poses substantial problems. Management is not only made difficult by insufficient information on the life habits of the fishes, but also by *

This article is a contribution of the Oceans Project of the EastWest-Center, Honolulu, Hawaii

potential or actual conflicts between the economic goals of the owners and users of the tuna resources. Some of these latter only recently declared 200 mile extended economic zones or archipelagic regimes, while others intend to do so shortly. In any case, the UNCLOS Ill-engendered new realities of ocean control in the Pacific blanket, like a crazy quilt, the vast current systems of the Pacific and with them, the living spaces and migration routes of the tunas (Fig 1, 2 and 3), suggesting that substantial international cooperation - as yet not practiced - will be necessary to achieve rational conservation oriented management of the tuna resources.

Tuna Biology and Distribution Tunas are the largest of fishes and the fastest swimming at that. They are voracious shoaling predators which have evolved to be warm-blooded, this physiological adaptation endowing them with greater swimming prowess but also limiting them to warm but oxygen-rich waters. Thus, they are distributed in the several tropical and subtropical seas of the world. The largest member of the family, the bluefin tuna, has several species and subspecies: there is the giant bluefin, Thunnus thynnus thynnus, in the Atlantic; the

GeoJoumal 4.5/1980

468

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Pacific bluefin, Thunnus thynnus orientefis, which occurs N of the equator; and the Southern bluefin, Thunnus Macooyi, in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. They can stand the coldest waters and reach furthest into the N and S seas respective(y. The albacore (Thunnus alalunga) and the bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesusJoccur in all oceans and are found in deeper water. The two most important species in international fish trade and commerce, the yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacQres) and the skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis) also have world-wide distribution; however Pacific catches of them contributed, in 1977, 62.9 % and 79 % respectively to the world catch of these species (FAO 1979). Our discussion here will be dealing mainly with them. They are fast-growing, voracious feeders, the yellowfin reaching easily a meter or more at harvesting size, while the skipjack is a lot smaller. Ye]lowfin distribution is bounded by the 23°C isotherm (Fig 2), while skipjack may spill a bit further into the N and S subtropical reaches with boundaries set, at least on the surface, by the 20°C isotherm (Fig 3) (Kearney 1978). Their high oxygen demand,

greater for smaller than for larger fish, bars the larger yellowfin from certain reaches of the sea, even within their general thermal ranges. The same physiological exigency restricts them to shallower waters in the Eastern than in the Western and Central tropical Pacific. These physiological determinants of tuna distribution have an important bearing of fishing methods for tunas, as will be mentioned in a later section. Yellowfin tuna in the Pacific have three reasonably distinct sub-populations, a Western, a Central and an Eastern one; it is suspected that smaller breeding divisions exist among them, with spawning sites largely confined to the warmer regions, even within the tropical seas.The larger fish are found further off shore and deeper than smaller ones, and it is inferred that offshore migrations prevail as the fish grow. Among the Central and Western Pacific populations there is also evidence of migrations from east to west. The fish easily mo)/e between 20 and 30 km a day and even though many tagged specimens have been recaptured not too far from tagging sites, some have been

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retaken after travels of more than a thousand kilometers (Suzuki et al. 1978). The migrations are undertaken in quest of food associated with regions of greater ocean fertility, located, in turn, in areas of upwelling of deeper, more fertile water located at the divergence of ocean currents or in the wake of islands or shallow sea mounts (Fig 4, 5, 6). It is unknown what oceanographic parameters guide the tuna on their food search, but it has been established that they sense small differences in temperature and that they have keen senses of vision, hearing and smell. The subdivisions of the skipjack populations in the Pacific are apparently more intricate than those of the yellowfin (Sharp 1978). Investigations into their biochemical genetics suggest that there are at least five different stocks of skipjack (Fig 3). Spawning occurs predominantly in the areas where the water temperature rarely falls below 28°C, that is, in the equatorial seas proper, towards the Central and Western reaches of the Pacific Ocean. As the young grow, they migrate towards the edges

of their range for pre-reproductive grazing on plankton and small fishes in zones of upwelling. There are also tendencies to migrate first eastward and then to return to the west as their spawning periods approach. Migration trends into the East Australian current and northward into the Kuroshio current (Fig I), have evolved greater or lesser tolerances of somewhat colder waters, with those in the Central Pacific being the least cold-tolerant. To complicate matters, there are also strains that remain relatively close to islands all their lives.

Resource Assessment Given the high unit value of tuna and an international fishery for it, one can also understand that there is great interest in estimates of how much tuna there might be to exploit. Concomitantly, there is concern that the fisheries for some species might now be at their permissible limits, if indeed they are not already over-exploiting the stocks.

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GeoJoumal 4.5/1980

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The best indicators as to sustainable yields of a fish population come from fishery statistics, especially in as widely a distributed .group of fishes as the tunas. Data from the Japanese long line fishery for yellowfin tuna (for details of this fishing method, see below) covering nearly the entire range of the species, make it appear as if an increase in fishing intensity would lead to damage to the stock and soon depress the numbers that can be taken (Japan Fisheries Agency 1979a). This is borne out by catches having reached a virtual plateau when more and more hooks were used, after an initial rise in yields (Fig 7). Thus, yellow-fin are considered fully exploited as far as Iongline fisheries go, with a little slack, perhaps, existing in the Central Pacific sub-population where the fish caught are larger, on the average, than those taken in the Western and Eastern Pacific, respectively (Suzuki et al. 1978). Decline in size, it should be said, is generally an indication also of approaching sustainable fishing limits. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission which regulates the fishery from ports in North, Central and South America estimates also that vessels under its advisory aegis are fishing near maximum permissible levels (IATTC 1979). Skipjack catches, on the contrary, have generally increased with increasing fishing pressures (Jap. Fish. Agency 1978 and 1979a), though here, as in other species of tuna, there are fluctuations in natural abundance in some years, caused by variations in oceanographic and meteorological conditions. Several estimates of total skipjack abundance in the Pacific range from permissible takes of 1 to 2 MMT (Kawasaki 1972). No doubt these are capable of being refined, but even so it is understandable that Pacific Island nations look to skipjack as a resource, the exploitation of which will contribute greatly to their economic development. The fishing effort, in turn, is greatly influenced by operating costs and demand which depend on such economic factors as fuel prices, "prices of competing commodities, cold storage holdings, etcl As economic development proceeds, more and more of the fishery will be undertaken by vessels under the flags of the resource owning countries, be that through vigorous indigenous technical development with foreign assistance or through joint ventures with major

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fishing powers or representatives of their industries prominently including technology transfer and adaptation of fishing methods.

T u n a Fishing Methods The three important methods for capturing tuna are longlining, multiple pole and line fishing and purse seining, trolling and hand lining are also employed (FAO 1959). Which of the first three would be used under .particular circumstances depends on the species pursued and on the location of the fishing site and with that on oceanographic conditions. About 35 % of the total tuna catch is secured by long line (Fig 8). Yellowfin tuna are prominent in long line catches but albacore, big-eye and blue fin tuna are also taken. Not infrequently a part of the catch further consists of swordfishes and certain sharks, all voracious high seas predators. Long line boats are substantial, displacing up to 300 tons; they operate in all tropical seas and stay away from their home ports up to 300 days. They have sophisticated freezing equipment and the fishing method which they employ is moderately to strongly labor intensive. Thousands of baited hooks are set whenever one long line is deployed with catch rates of 1.5-3 % depending on the size

472

Fig 8 Tuna long-lining fishing; the individual hooks are baited (For further details see text). (After Yamaha Fishing Journal, Anonymous, 1979)

Fig 9 The Skipjack pole-and-line fishing; the fishermen attract the tuna to the surface by live bait and throw the fish caught with barbless hooks over their shoulders onto the deck and into the hold. (After Yamaha Fishing Journal, Anonymous 1979)

of the boat and fishing grounds but with tuna by no means guaranteed to be the only fish on the hooks (Jap. Fish. Agcy. 1979b). The bulk of skipjack tuna are caught with pole and line (Fig 9) perhaps the most picturesque way of fishing for tuna. Skipjack shoals frequent the surface, especially when hunting for their prey. Shoals are often sighted, assisted by spotting seabirds which hunt the same shoals of small fish. Skipjack prey is smaller than the standard fare of yellowfin and other larger species, but it should be added that all tunas are strongly cannibalistic and feed on their own young much and often. The most common prey of adult skipjack tuna are anchovies; these occur, generally, near islands and in consequence the pole and line fishery does not take place too far from land. Its rationale is to attract the skipjack to live bait cast overboard from the vessel, assisted by a spray of water to roil the surface, mimicking shoals of small fishes. When the skipjack begin to feed on the bait, the fishermen who are standing on a walkway along the gunwale take them with lures on barbless hooks. The fish are thrown over the fishermen's shoulder onto the deck where they spit out the hook. They are then iced or frozen. Pole and line vessels are of 50 to 100 tons capacity, but larger boats (200 or more tons) are also used. Still, by and large, they are smaller than long liners and purse seiners (see below), but more men are employed on them per ton of vessel capacity. They are sometimes attached to freezing motherships or else operate in conjunction with shore-based freezing or canning plants.

GeoJoumal 4.5/1980

One of the limitations of pole and line fishing is the availability of bait. Technically advanced on-board bait holding facilities permit long voyages, but localized bait culture is also being developed. As bait is the limiting factor in most skipjack fishing operations, and as bait culturing enterprises are tied to the shore, they hold some promise for helping to develop indigenous fisheries. In spite of skipjack being more surface oriented than other tunas, it is still not possible to capture them in nets over most of their range. They move freely in the upper, mixed, isothermal (warm) layer of the ocean which extends through the first 200 meters, in the Central and Western Pacific. Attempts at simply surrounding them with nets lead to their sounding and escaping. Purse seining (Fig 10) is used in the Eastern Pacific for all kinds of tuna, mainly yellowfin and skipjack. Close to the coast of the Americans the upper mixed layer of the sea is shallow and large seines can be extended through its entire depth. The tuna are highly temperature sensitive and as the water cools abruptly below the mixed layer, the fish do not sound below the net. Several variants of purse seining are practiced. In essence, when the shoal is sighted, the seine is deployed and pulled around the shoal by a fast and powerful tender or by another fishing vessel. The bottom line is then pursed and the fish are brailed into the icing or freezing holds. Purse seining is the least labor and most capital intensive of the tuna fishing methods. Tuna are wont to associate with porpoises, especially where the thermocline is shallow. There purse seiners "set on porpoise", that is they spot the mammals and surround them because there is usually a shoal of tuna below them. In this process many porpoises in the Eastern Pacific have been killed unnecessarily, at least in the past. At present a slight modification of the large seine which allows the porpoise to escape over the net and greater care by the captains of the vessels have reduced porpoise kills in tuna purse seining. The biological reason for the association of tuna and porpoises remains unknown. Speculations are that it helps both animals to feed or that it facilitates orientations by the tuna in an otherwise fairly trackless environment. The first speculation is supported by the fact that tuna have a keen sense of smell and can smell prey from afar, while porpoises have no olfactory sense at all. They, in turn, have organs that enable them to use powerful ultrasonic echo-location by means of which they track their prey. Thus, in a biological sense, "the lame would lead the blind" to clear potential mutual advantage. Whether a shoal of prey is smelled by the tuna or "heard" by the porpoise, both species would home in on it, since both animals have excellent vision which permits them to maintain their association (Atema, in press). The second but rather weak explanation for the tunaporpoise association is supported by the habits of the fish to congregate around floating objects, and porpoise may

GeoJoumal 4.5/1980

seem like moving logs to them. One should also note though, that floating objects afford protection to smaller sea life. The log-seeking habit is the basis of a variant of tuna purse seining practiced in the shallow seas of the Philippines. Purse seining combined with floating rafts evolved gradually combining rural and modern technology (Aprieto 1979). Bamboo floating rafts are indigenous fishing gear; they are basically fish shelters for luring small pelagic fishes in rivers, estuaries, coves and nearshore quiet waters. Their simple version consisted mainly of a layer of 5 to 8 bamboo or coconut stems tied together with a bundle of twigs hanging on the underside. These devices were (and still are) floated across the migratory paths of fishes, with simple handlines and various types of enclosing nets being used to harvest the fish accumulated beneath the raft. When the highly mechanized sardine purse seine was introduced in the Philippines in the early 1960's, bigger floating rafts were built. Today floating rafts are made of two layers of bamboo 10 to 15 m long and 2 m wide. Their underside is rigged with coconut or palm fronds and the whole structure is anchored with a steel barrel filled with rock and cement (Fig 10). The rafts are set from 20 to 40 miles from the shore with 7 miles distance between rafts. Small scout boats with fish finders and ship to shore communications monitor the rafts for fish concentrations sizeable enough for purse seining operations. When "harvestable" floats are identified the scout boat contacts the catcher vessel transmitting the position of the rafts. The catcher vessel immediately proceeds to the fishing area and ties up to the raft drifting with it during the remainder of the day. At dusk, the vessel turns on its strong floodlights to attract further small fish which accumulated around the vessel and the raft. These serve as live bait for tuna: Before dawn, two gas lamps are fixed onto the vessel's small service boat which is then lashed to the raft, both raft and skiff being released from the seiner. Simultaneously, the floodlights are gradually turned off. The raft and the service boat drift away from the vessel with the small fish beneath them, mainly round scads and sardines which have been attracted by the lights on the vessel. The vessel keeps watch on the fish under the shelter by sonar and when a good shoal of tuna is detected, the raft is disengaged from the anchor line which is then marked by a buoy. Thereafter the purse seine is set. The following night, if the fish are still abundant in the area, the same raft can be used for another purse seining operation. Usually, rafts are harvested every 5 to 6 days. Raft fishing is pursued in areas where there are mainly juvenile fish; around 50 % of the catch comprises animals of less than one kg, a very small size for skipjack which constitute about 60 % of the catch. Yellowfin make up 25 % of the seine catch and big-eye tuna 15 %; the remainder are miscellaneous species (Aprieto 1979). Raft fishing, which is likely to spread from the Philippines to other islands especially in the Western and South-Central Pacific could thus

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Fig 10 Purseseine and a floating raft. (For further details see text). (After Yamaha Fishing Journal, Anonymous 1979 and Aprieto, personal communication 1979) well make rapid inroads into the stocks unless stringent conservation measures were instituted. Production Considering that large parts of the Atlantic and Indian oceans are tuna habitat it is noteworthy that 1977 data reveal that approximately one-half (1,138,345 t ) o f world tuna catch (2,334,109t) came from Western Central, Eastern Central, and to a lesser extent the SW Pacific (FAO 1979). Among these, the Western Central Pacific developed into the major tuna fishing area due to high production of skipjack and non-primary species of tuna including king mackerel (5comberomorus spp), Kawakawa (Euthynnus affinis); Iongtail tuna (Thunnus tonggol); Wahoo, (Acanthocybium so/andri) and tuna-like fishes of the sub-order 5combroidei. In contrast, yellowfin is the dominant species in the Eastern Central Pacific. Japan caught 30.5 %, Korea 4.9 %, Taiwan 2.2 % and the USA 13.2 % of the tuna taken in the Pacific in 1977. The rest were caught by SE Asian countries (33 %), South Pacific Island nations (4.4 %), and by Central and Latin American fishermen. The Philippines are the major tuna fishing nation in SE Asia and their tuna fishery is rapidly growing (Tab 1). Next in rank of tonnage in SE Asia are Indonesia and Malaysia. The Western Central Pacific island nations are also rapidly developing their own tuna fisheries; the oceanic region in which they lie is likely to hold substantial promise for further expansion of these endeavors.

Marketing and Associated Problems Tuna occur in shoals and spoil easily, in part because they are warmblooded, and marketing them generally requires refrigeration and/or canning. Thus the market for fresh tuna is rather limited in the areas of its production and storing and processing become important. Three different stor-

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GeoJoumal 4.5/1980

Tab 1 Tuna Production and Joint Venture Development in Southeast Asia and the South Pacific (unit: metric tons)

From FAO, 1979. Primary species include albacore, yellowfin, bluefin, bigeye, skipjack, marlin, swordfish, sailfish and billfishes; domestic species include bonito, cero, Spanish mackerel, little tunny, black skipjack, king mackerel, frigate and bullet tunas, Kawakawa, wahoo, Iongtail una, and tuna-like fishes. From Suisan-sha, 1979. Suisan Shuho (Anonymous), 1978; and Bulletin of the National Federation of Fishing Associations in Philippines (Anonymous), 1978. ing methods are employed: storing in ice, storage in iced water and quick freezing. Processing may take place on board fishing vessels depending on the type of boat and the distance of the fishing grounds. Prices differ between fresh iced and frozen fish: fresh fish for "Sashimi" (slices of raw fish) are most expensive in Japan where this dish is highly appreciated, and frozen fish is comparatively cheap because it is used to make dried skipjack or for canning. Tuna is a very versatile food commodity as various consumers have developed different taste preferences for the flesh of these fish. Albacore, yellowfin, bluefin, bigeye and skipjack are regarded as primary species of tuna in the international market, but they have little value in the domestic marktes of SE Asian and South Pacific nations. These nations could traditionally only take the smaller fish, and their spoilage prevention capabilities were and are limited, thus juveniles and small tuna species are preferred for the table. Tuna moves through international trade channels either frozen raw or canned. Minor trading in fresh and dried tuna as well as cooked tuna loins and other specialty items also occurs. Frozen raw tuna has relatively free access tu the principal world market, while canned tuna is more restricted

as to the number, size, and type of markets it may enter, a result of national trade barriers, economic considerations and local eating habits (FAO 1976). The major world markets for tuna are USA, Japan and W Europe (Tab 2). Consumers in the U S A and W Europe utilize mostly canned tuna, while the Japanese prefer their tuna raw, spiced or in a dried form though canned tuna usage is on the increase. About 80 % of the American market is for tuna packed in oil.Most of the remainder is packed in water. In Europe, condiment preferences vary by country. French consumers prefer vegetable oil, brine and tomato sauce pack. Italiansprefer their tuna packed in olive oil, as do the Spanish; however, Spanish consumers purchase notable volumes of canned tuna in vegetable oil, brine and tomato sauce. All species of tuna lend themselves to canning but albacore is the prime species in the U S A and the only species that can be sold on the American market as white meat. In the USA, which utilizes about 80 % of the world production, as well as in France and Spain, albacore commands the highest price of all tunas. It also yields most canned product per ton of raw material.

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Tab2 World Tuna Markets: Production and Consumption a Range encompasses 1975-1978. Data from US Department of Commerce 1976 and 1978, and IMF, 1979. b Range encompasses 1975-1979. Data from Japan External Trade Organization, 1979, and Japan Prime Minister's Office, 1979. c FAO 1976 and 1979. German Population is 61 million, based on IMF, 1979. Tab 3 Average Tuna Ex-Vessel Prices in Japan and the United States: Primary Species (unit: ~/t) Skipjack

usA 1,0:06 s : ~ 7 I~416 :794 Japanese price from Norinsuisan Sho Tokei J6h6 Bu., 1979. Two foreign exchange rates were used: 297.1 yen per US ~ for 1975 and 266.91 yen per US S for 1977. US Price from US Department of Commerce, 1978 and 1979. 45 % of this total catch was landed in Hawaii and marketed in Hawaii and elsewhereas "sashimi".

In Japan, bigeye and bluefin are the preferred species for the Sashimi market and command very high prices; yellowfin are next in preference. Skipjack, which is consumed primarily as "Katsuo-bushi" (a smoke-dried product), but also as sashimi, is generally considered separate from "tuna" in the Japanese market formulation. However, the Sashimi market for skipjack is increasing and 60,000 t or 17 % of the total skipjack supply was consumed in the Sashimi market in 1976 (Yamaha Fishing Journal 1979). Prices of the different tuna species in Japan and the USA, respectively illustrate the above mentioned preferences (Tab 3). In W Europe the principal producing countries are Spain and France and the leading consuming nations are France, Italy, Spain, the Federal Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom. FR Germany and the UK import their tuna in the canned form, mainly from Japan, Taiwan and Peru; they have neither tuna packing facilities nor tuna fishing fleets. France and Spain have their own fishing fleets and tuna canning plants. Italy has a large tuna canning industry but relies almost entirely on imports of frozen tuna for raw material to operate the plants. Italy and Spain produce enough canned tuna to maintain a good export market (FAO 1976). Though these tuna conserves are mainly destined for the European market, one may occasionally find them also in the Pacific where the fish that filled the cans may have been caught but where tuna in tins is otherwise almost exclusively of Japanese or US origin.

That tuna "migrate" in cans even over wider distances than when they are alive not only testifies to the contribution of Francois Appert who, to prevent food spoilage, invented canning around 1800 but more so to the fact that processing is the key to marketing which in turn is one of the key controlling factors even over the production of a natural resource. In the case of tuna the respective market predominances are assisted by national tuna markets being most sizeable both in Japan and USA (Tab 2). It is not surprising, therefore, to observe the tendency among new nations in the sea spaces of which the tuna live to establish, as much as possible, control on their territories over the entire production process that results in the marketable commodity (fishing, freezing and canning).

Tuna Management The tendency toward establishing national control over more than just fishing for the tuna is helped by declarations of 200 nautical mile Extended Economic Zones (EEZ) and Archipelagic Regimes (the waters inside archipelagoes are national waters). These two kinds of resource governance, have, in essence assumed the status of customary international law, thanks to the support of them by a majority of nations in the 7-year-long deliberations of the United Nations Conference of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III). The fish now truly "belong" to the coastal nation in the

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economic zone of which they may find themselves at one time or another. This new status also imposes management obligations on the coastal state. However, as fisheries management predicates in practice the exercise of control over the volume of fish taken and the times at which they can be caught, that is control over boats and gear and as most tuna boats are not, or not wholly, owned by the coastal nations one aspect of management mostly centers around accomodations between resource users and resource owners. These accomodations mainly take the guise of fee fishing and of joint ventures for fishing, freezing and processing. Historically, the first international fee fishing agreement was the Banda SeaAgreement between the Indonesian Government and the Japanese Federation of Fisheries Cooperatives and Tuna Fisheries Cooperatives respectively. Indonesia has unliterally claimed her archipelagic waters in 1957. However, her claim was not accepted by other nations including Japan. When Japanese tuna and skipjack vessels began to be seized in 1960 negotiations went on over several years to settle the conflicts (Suisan Shuh6, Anon. 1979). In 1968 the first agreement set the fishing area, the base port, numbers and sizes of vessels permitted to fish and fishing fees. The agreement was revised three times, later to include a fee increase and pledges of economic assistance and eventually also a short-lived profit-sharing system. The current Banda Sea agreement based on a catch fee - (3.75 % of standard landing value at Japanese port) was established in 1979. With set catch quotas, exclusive fishing rights and obligation for in-country training being part of it, it entails reporting of catches and requires on-board inspection. The exclusive economic zones in theWestern and South pacific, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon and Gilbert Islands are also regulated by fee fishing agreements (Suisan Sekai 1978 and Suisan Sha 1979a). New Zealand requires entry fees and a larger import by Japan of her agricultural and forest products. Papua New Guinea requires entry fees and fishing fees while the Solomon and Gilbert Islands require fishing fees and set quotas. They also levy excess catch fees when the basic quotas are exceeded, and they tie the supply of development equipment to the fee fishing agreement. Japanese payment alone for fee fishing to New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon and Gilbert Islands amounted to over 6 million dollars in 1979 (Suisan Sha 1979a). Fee fishing provides a rent to coastal nations which try to link to it some technology transfer and other economic advantages, japanese Fisheries Cooperatives prefer fee fishing over joint venture because it is clearcut and because the government now helps to bear its burden. However, the coastal nations must survey and enforce the arrangements, technology transfer to them may not be significant, and they may overestimate the net economic rent they receive. Joint ventures in fisheries can bring capital, technology and jobs to coastal nations and if they are for processing

and grading, as is often the case, they can in principle contribute to national development. The foreign partner assures himself, at least for the duration of the agreement, the access to a certain volume of fish for his home consumption or trade. Like in fee fishing, Japanese companies are the most prominent foreign joint venture partners, who, incidentally, have preferred these contracts to fee fishing because they have permitted attractive investment opportunities. As early as 1957 a Japanese fishing and a trading company together established the South Pacific Fishing Company as a joint venture with the New Hebrides to tranship tuna to Japan (Suisan Shuh6, Anon. 1978). In 1959 there followed the founding of Malayan Marine Industries for tuna long-lining and canning operations. Since then Japanese firms have become increasingly involved in tuna joint ventures all over the world. Their mainstay, however, still is the Pacific (Tab 1). Among 21 joint venture companies related to tuna and operating at present in the Pacific, 15 are associated with Japan, one with Australia (in the Philippines), one with France (French Polynesia), 3 with USA (Philippines, French Polynesia and Papua New Guinea), and one has both Japanese and US interests (Papua New Guinea). Yet only 8 Japanese joint ventures are for tuna fishing alone; the rest provide transshipment bases or processing plants (Bulletin of the National Federation of Fishing Association in the Philippines, Anon. 1978; Kent 1978; Suisan Sha 1979b; Suisan Shuh6, Anon. 1974 and 1978). In the short run joint ventures may hamper the development of local initiatives in tuna fisheries and as nations may rely excessively on the income which joint ventures can provide these latter may even create conservation and management problems. In the long run, though they may pave the way for even greater control over the resources on the part of the resource owners. As coastal nations acquire scientific and technical skills in the management of their 200 mile extended economic and archipelagic zones, perhaps by joining forces, and as th@y shape renewals of joint ventures in such a fashion as to acquire vessels, freezing plants and canneries (8 joint venture freezing plants and 5 joint venture canneries now operate in the SW Pacific), participation by foreign fishing powers in the tuna fisheries of the Pacific will decline. These latter will turn to more intensive resource use, including aquaculture, in their own 200 mile economic zones.

E q u i t y and Sustainable Yield In contrast to the economic accomodation of interests just discussed, the actual, high seas management of tunas is beset with particularly knotty international legal, scientific and operational problems. Legally, fish inside the extended economic zones are under the management of the coastal

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state with the obligation expressed in the negotiating texts of UNCLOS III to share fish surpluses over and above such amounts as can be harvested by that state (United Nations 1978). (Such sharing may be accomplished by imposing quotas on and levying fees from foreign fishing vesselsor by joint ventures). The new developing nations of the Pacific consider tuna temporarily in their economic zones their property and subject to their management or adjudication. The United States, on the contrary, have embodied in the legislation concerning their 200 mile economic zone (P.L. 94-265, the Fisheries Conservation and Management Act of 1976), the tenet that highly migratory species must be managed by regulations covering their entire range and that therefore binding international agreements should be made governing the entire fishing for them. The two viewpoints have not been reconciled, so far. It is, however, recognized by all parties interested in the tuna that minimally, there should be an advisory body with rapid access and means to disseminate biological and economic information on tuna stocks and the tuna fishery. It is still open to debate who should have membership in such an organization; the South Pacific nations who have formed the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (Australia, Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Western Samoa), do not favor participation in this agency of USA, Japan, Taiwan and Korea, or even of Indonesia and the Philippines. The first mentioned nations have the main fishing power, while the two last mentioned have in their waters important tuna spawning grounds and also some of the stocks that migrate seasonally into the sea spaces of some of the Agency nations. For further accomodation which must clearly be sought, one ought to note that greater cooperative research efforts could help towards attaining a better scientific base for setting fishing limits and quotas. Here it might be useful to distinguish three stages: (a) the collection and compilation of data; (b) the scientific assessments essentially drawing yield curves and estimating the effects of changes in fishing practice; and (c) the decisions of what level of fishing mortality is desirable, what catch quotas should be set to reach it, etc. While all would

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be geared to rational sustainable yields management of the various species in their various subregions, cooperation to accomplish the first two may well be easier to achieve than truly reaching a joint management stance. One must note here that present pronouncements on these yields are largely guesses and that catch statistics of tuna are presently deficient. Under the new 200-mile regime, gathering of them from distant-water tuna fishing nations may pose even greater problems. Some international cooperation in tuna research is, however, underway even now. For instance, with supports from Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, United Kingdom and USA, a Skipjack Survey and Assessment Programme of the South Pacific Commission started in 1977 and has tagged about 90,000 skipjack tuna in the South Pacific (Brown 1979). Some Korean, Japanese, Taiwan, and US fisheries laboratories are doing applied scientific work on the various species and cooperating with each other while the FAO convenes meetings with participants from most Pacific nations. The coordination of that research would be benefited by a specific operating organization with speedy access to complete statistics. It should be financed by resource owners and resource users and staffed by members of both groups and it should have as its ultimate goal to give advice on amounts, time and locations of limitations of effort that would be required over the entire area through which the various species roam. The enforcement and surveillance of tuna fisheries will remain costly and difficult; at least in the SW Pacific because accidental or purposeful incursions into EEZs from the high seas are likely to continue, even when most EEZfisheries are done by vessels under coastal zone flags. A regional operating agency with as much pooling of surveillance resources and sharing of sovereignty as the political circumstances of the moment permit could go a long way to facilitate the necessary enforcement. The South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency is a step in that direction but without having coupled to it, in some fashion, an entity such as mentioned above, that can give it detailed biological management advice it may only be effective to satisfy short term economic goals of its members; in the longer run it will hardly be able to curb overfishing.

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References Anikouchine, W.A. and Sternberg, R.W.: The World Ocean, Engelwood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice-Hall, Inc. pp. 96-117, 1973. Aprieto, V.: Personal correspondance, September 1,1979 Atema, J.: Chemical Senses, Chemical Signals, and Feeding Behavior in Fishes. In: Fish Behaviour and Its use in the Capture and Culture of Fishes, Bardach, ].E., J.I. Magnuson, R.C. May and J.M. Reinhart, eds., Manila, Philippines, ICLARM Conference Proceedings No. 4, International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management (in press) Brown, W.T.: Personal communication, August 23, 1979 Bulletin of the National Federation of Fishing Association in the Philippines, Anonymous: Tuna Industry Trends and Briefs. November, p. 3 (1978) FAO: Modern Fishing Gear of the World. Kristjonsson, H., ed., London, Fishing News Ltd., 1959. FAO: Development Potential of Selected Fisheries Products in the Regional Member Countries of the Asian Development Bank. 8 vols. Manila, FAO South China Sea Programme. Vol. 4: The International Market for Tuna. SCS/D EV/76/13 (1976) FAO: 1977 Yearbook of Fishery Statistics, Vol. 44, 100-110, 1979. Holt, S.: Marine Fishery. In: Ocean Yearbook 1, pp. 38-83, Borgese, E.M. and Ginsburg, N., eds., Chicago, I11. University of Chicago Press 1979. IATTC: Annual Report of the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission 1978 (1979) IMF: International Financial Statistics, 32, 164 and 400 (1979) Japan External Trade Organization: JapaneseTrade on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Commodities 1979, 379-384 (1979) Japan Fisheries Agency: Annual Reports of Effort and Catch Statistics by A r e a - JapaneseSkipjack Baitboat Fishery 1976 and 1977. Research Division, p. 273 and p. 320, respectively (1978 and 1979a} Japan Fisheries Agency: Annual Report of Effort and Catch Statistics by Area on JapaneseTuna Longline Fishery 1977. p. 179 (1979b) Japan Prime Minister's Office: Monthly Statistics of Japan, No. 217, Statistic Bureau, p. 6 (1979) Kawasaki, T.: On Skipjack Resources in the World. Suisan Shuh5 (The Fishing & Food Industry Weekly) 660, 32--38 (1972) Kearney, R.E.: Some Hypotheses on Skipjack (Katsuowonus pelamis) in the Pacific Ocean. South Pacific Commission Occasional Paper 7 (1978)

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Kent, G.: South Pacific Fisheries Management. An unpublished manuscript (1978) Nakamura, M.: Aquaculture Grounds Development under the 200 mile Regime. Kokusai Shigen (International Resources) 32, 8 - 1 7 (1977) Norinsuisan Sho Tokei Jbh6 Bu (Statistical Information Division, Ministry of Agriculture, Foresty and Fisheries in Japan), 1977 Suisanbutsu Ryutsu Tokei Nenpo (Statistical Report on Fisheries Commodity Marketing in Japan), 32-33 (1979) Sharp, G.D.: Behavior and Physiological Properties of Tunas and Their Effects on Vulnerability to Fishing Gear. In: the Physiological Ecology of Tuna. pp. 397-449, Sharp, G.D. and Dizon, A.E., eds., New York, San Francisco and London, Academic Press, 1978. Suisan Sekai (Fisheries World), Anonymous: Impacts of 200 mile Economic Zone on Fisheries - Trends and Patterns among the South Pacific Forum Nations. 27,9, 22-26 (1978) Suisan Sha: Fisheries Yearbook of Japan 1979, 26, 27-32 (1979a) Suisan Sha: Fisheries Yearbook of I apan 1979, 26,185-193 (1979b) Suisan Shuh6 (The Fishing and Food Industry Weekly),Anonymous: Papue New Guinea Canning Company. 718, p. 4 (1974) Suisan ShuhS, Anonymous: Summary of Japanese Tuna and Skipjack Joint Ventures. 825, 44-49 (1978) Suisan Shuho, Anonymous: The Banda Sea Agreement on Tuna Fishery. 852, p. 24 (1979) Suzuki, U., Tomlinson, P.K. and Honma, M.: Population Structure of Pacific Yellowfin Tuna. IATTC Bulletin, 17, 5, 273-442 (1978) Tomiyama, T.: Fisheries in Japan - Tuna. Japan Marine Products Photo Materials Association 1975. United Nations: Part 5, Exclusive Economic Zone. In: The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. Official Records Vol. VIII. Informal Composite Negotiating Text (Documents A/Conf. 62/WP. 10 and AD.D.1) Sixth Session New York, 23 May--15 July 1977, 13--16 (1978) US Department of Commerce: Fisheries of the United States 1976. pp. 2, 24, 25 and 30, 1977. US Department of Commerce: Fisheries of the United States 1978. pp. 2 and 50, 1979. US Department of Commerce: Statistical Digest No. 69 - Fisheries Statistics of the United States 1975, p. 24 (1978) Yamaha Fishing Journal, Anonymous: Tuna and Skipjack. No. 5. Yamaha Motor Co., Iwata, Shizuoka, Japan (1979)