The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency’s Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) Working Group meeting closed at the end of March after five days of discussions about how to respond to illegal fishing.
37 experts from monitoring, control and surveillance of fisheries from the 17 member countries and territories of the FFA discussed tools to combat illegal fishing.
The response of the FFA and its members has been to use a range of tools to deter, detect and prosecute cases of illegal fishing. The MCS Working Group meeting discussed how Pacific Island countries and territories and can improve these tools to combat illegal fishing in national waters and the high seas. Tools discussed included:
Monitoring tools: The FFA Vessel Monitoring System, a satellite-based system that monitors the position, speed and direction of licensed fishing vessels, the Observer Program, which places independent data collectors on board fishing vessels.
Control tools: Legislative arrangements for data sharing between countries, enforcement legislation, Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission rules and their implementation at a national level.
Surveillance tools: The Regional Fisheries Surveillance Centre which collects, displays and analyses aircraft and vessel movements to identify and monitor suspicious vessels and advise national staff to make decisions on where to allocate surveillance aircraft and patrol boats.
The Regional Monitoring Control and Surveillance Strategy (which is in development to assist the region to better communicate and coordinate to target their efforts for an effective monitoring, control and surveillance regime) was also discussed by the workshop participants. This will be presented to Ministers this July.
Recommendations from the meeting will be made available shortly.
