The organization that sets fishing rules for a swath of the Pacific Ocean covering nearly 20% of Earth’s surface and supplying half the world’s tuna catch held its annual meeting in Fiji from Nov. 28 to Dec. 3.
Parties to the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) adopted a landmark crew welfare measure — the first binding labor rights measure adopted by any of the world’s 17 regional fisheries management organizations.
The parties, 25 countries plus the European Union, also adopted a voluntary measure to implement electronic monitoring of catches.
However, they didn’t adopt a proposal to curb potentially dodgy ship-to-ship transfers known as transshipments, or substantive new protections for sharks and seabirds, as NGO observers had hoped.
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Working on fishing vessels has for centuries been one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. To this day, forced labor and other human rights abuses remain relatively common, with workers from low-income countries especially at risk. But new regulations in the Western Pacific Ocean could make it harder for ship operators to get away with abuses, and could catalyze change in other regions.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), a multilateral body that sets fishing rules for an area that covers nearly 20% of Earth’s surface and produces half the world’s tuna catch, adopted a landmark crew welfare measure at its recent annual meeting, which took place in Fiji from Nov. 28 to Dec. 3. It’s the first binding labor rights measure adopted by any of the world’s 17 regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs).
The measure is a “step forward for human rights at sea,” Bubba Cook, a program manager at WWF-New Zealand who has advocated for the measure for years, told Mongabay.
“There is no question this is a … mast light for other RFMOs as we chart a course into the future,” Cook said at the meeting’s final plenary, according to a statement he shared with Mongabay. “With this important step, we have acknowledged the humanity of those crew working in challenging conditions around the world to bring seafood to our tables.”
On a personal level, Cook said the measure’s adoption was a “hugely emotional moment” that brought him to tears because a friend of his who disappeared while working in the fishing industry had advocated for human rights at sea and because of the positive impact he said he expects the new rules will have.
The annual meeting otherwise produced what NGO observers described as mixed results. The WCPFC parties adopted a voluntary measure to implement electronic monitoring of catches. This could help with data collection and rule enforcement, particularly on longliner fishing vessels, which have very low rates of catch monitoring by human observers in the Western Pacific.
However, the parties didn’t adopt another measure largely aimed at longliners: a tightening of rules meant to curb potentially dodgy ship-to-ship transfers known as transshipments. Nor did they adopt substantive new protections for sharks and seabirds, and they took no action to open up a key compliance meeting to NGO observers or improve governance more generally, drawing criticism from transparency advocates.
Workers offload Pacific bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) at a pier in Honolulu, Hawai‘i.
Workers offload Pacific bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) at a pier in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. Image courtesy of NOAA Fisheries.
There are about 17 RFMOs in the world, with some overlapping geographically but managing different fish stocks. Map shows the five best-known and commercially important RFMOs, which focus on tuna and tuna-like species. Image courtesy of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
There are about 17 RFMOs in the world, with some overlapping geographically but managing different fish stocks. The map shows the five best-known and most commercially important RFMOs, which focus on tuna and tuna-like species; the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) is among them. Image courtesy of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Crew welfare reform
In the last decade, labor unions, NGOs and news outlets, including Mongabay, have raised alarms about terrible working conditions on some fishing vessels, particularly those flagged to Asian countries and crewed by Southeast Asian workers. Such work has drawn the attention of lawmakers and fisheries managers to human rights issues and ramped up pressure for government action. In Fiji, the 26 member parties — 25 countries plus the European Union — heeded the call.
The new measure establishes minimum standards on board, including access to clean food and water, medical care, and sleeping quarters. It stipulates that workers have “unfettered access” to their identity documents — management has been known to withhold passports as a form of leverage — and “unmonitored access to communication devices to seek assistance.” It also requires that contracts be written in a language understood by crew members, and that certain protocols be followed when workers die, face serious illness or injury, or go missing.
The measure, which will take effect in 2028, applies to all vessels fishing in the Western and Central Pacific high seas, as international waters are called, or that go between the high seas and countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs), or that work in more than one EEZ.
Hariyanto Suwarno, chair of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI), which represents fishing industry workers, told Mongabay that his union welcomed the measure but was disappointed with the late start date. In closing statements in Fiji, SBMI and a partner organization called for strong implementation of the new measure not just from the flag states that are ultimately responsible for labor practices on board vessels, but also from “crew-sending countries” such as Indonesia to improve recruitment and deployment practices, and from port states to ensure compliance.
China, whose distant-water fishing fleet has been widely accused of abuses, ultimately agreed to the crew welfare measure in Fiji; WCPFC decisions are made by consensus, so it couldn’t have been adopted otherwise. But it did so only after the other parties agreed to China’s preferences regarding the measure’s start date, reporting requirements and other language, according to NGO observers.
Elizabeth Mitchell-Rachin, a board member of the Association for Professional Observers, a nonprofit based in the U.S. state of Oregon, told Mongabay that more research is necessary to understand the full implications of the new measure. However, she added she suspected it might have limited effect because RFMOs in general have difficulties enforcing their rules and because this measure in particular contains unclear language that operators could potentially use to skirt responsibility if alleged violations take place in EEZs.
Cook of WWF said the measure was “far from perfect” but still “groundbreaking,” a characterization also used by a U.S. official in a statement praising the initiative and listing other accomplishments from the meeting. Cook called its adoption a tribute to his late friend Keith Davis, a fisheries observer who had called out labor abuses in global forums as early as 2007 and later disappeared while at sea on a job, raising suspicions he was killed after witnessing illegal activity.
Crew welfare and conservation are inextricably linked, Cook said.
“I mean, if you’re if you are allowing human rights abuses to occur at sea, do you think someone is really going to be abiding by the laws related to conservation issues?” he said. “It’s all interconnected. And that’s why we, as WWF, we’re a conservation organization, but we had to come to realize that if you’re not protecting the people that are out there doing the work to catch the fish, nobody’s going to be taking care of the resource that they’re catching.”
The 21st annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) was held in Suva, Fiji, from Nov. 28-Dec. 3, 2024.
The 21st annual meeting of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) was held in Suva, Fiji, from Nov. 28-Dec. 3, 2024. Image courtesy of Dave Gershman.
Long on fishing effort, short on observation
Many alleged labor abuses in the Pacific have occurred on longliners. Experts also have concerns about longliners’ impact on seabirds, sharks and marine mammals in the region. A single longliner can drop thousands of baited hooks at a time, and they’re numerous in the WCPFC convention area, outnumbering registered purse seiners 1,841 to 482 and outstripping them in terms of time spent fishing, though purse seiners have a higher catch.
The main longliner fleets in the WCPFC are flagged to China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan, commission data show. They’re lightly regulated, with only 5% vessel coverage by fisheries observers required. All purse seiners in the WCPFC, on the other hand, are required to have an observer on board.
Past efforts to increase observer coverage requirements on longliners have gone nowhere, so NGOs and conservation-minded parties have shifted their focus to electronic monitoring, a relatively new system that includes onboard cameras.
The parties in Fiji adopted a measure establishing an electronic monitoring system in which uptake is voluntary but comes with benefits including streamlined data reporting and, in some cases, a slight increase in the amount of bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) catch allowed.
Dave Gershman, a senior officer on RFMO policy at Pew Charitable Trusts, a U.S.-based think tank, said the adoption of the system was 10 years in the making and would improve oversight of the region’s fisheries. He said the measure would help WCPFC keep pace with other tuna RFMOs that already have voluntary electronic monitoring systems in place. There’s no immediate plan to make electronic monitoring mandatory, but such a requirement could be part of a “future conversation,” he said.
Another proposal in Fiji that was largely aimed at regulating longliners wasn’t adopted: a measure to tighten transshipment rules.
Transshipment refers to vessel-to-vessel transfers, often involving fishing vessels offloading catch onto large carrier vessels. It has been linked to both crew abuses, because it enables fishing vessels to remain at sea for long stretches, and to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, because catches from different vessels often mix in the carriers’ holds and become hard to trace.
In the WCPFC convention area, 83% of transshipment events in 2023 involved longliners, commission data show.
Crew members from Southeast Asia work to unload fish on purse seiners in the Western Pacific Ocean in 2023.
Crew members from Southeast Asia work to unload fish on purse seiners in the Western Pacific Ocean in 2023. Image courtesy of Francisco Blaha.
Many experts have called for a moratorium on transshipments on the high seas, but the discussion in Fiji focused on more modest reforms, such as reporting, tracking and observation requirements. Still, no agreement could be reached due to opposition from Taiwan, China and South Korea, NGO observers said. Those three flag states have accounted for the vast majority of transshipment events in the region since 2016, according to commission data.
“This commission and its members are continuing to fall behind international efforts to improve the monitoring of transshipment and this is, I think, all the more concerning because the majority of the world’s tuna transshipment happens within the WCPFC convention area,” Gershman said.
Many of the WCPFC’s member nations share Gershman’s concern, commission documents indicate. Before the Fiji meeting, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), a bloc of 17 island nations that wields some power within the WCPFC, issued a strong statement favoring transshipment reform that called current regulation “ineffective.”
Current transshipment regulation in the WCPFC, established in 2009, theoretically allows at-sea transfers only in exceptional cases where bringing fish to port is “impracticable.” But, as the FFA statement says, “they have, in practice, become the norm.”
Other efforts in Fiji to regulate longliners to reduce their ecosystem impacts also largely fizzled out.
A new shark protection measure adopted in Fiji didn’t close existing regulatory loopholes as NGO observers had hoped. In 2019, the WCPFC adopted a measure that required that shark fins remain “naturally attached” to the body, in a bid to stop the practice of shark finning, which involves cutting off a shark’s fins and dumping the live animal back in the ocean. While the parties tightened one relevant rule in Fiji, vessel operators will still have two alternatives to landing the shark whole, including using a unique tag system that allows the fins to be kept separately. The new measure also left in place the option for longliners to have fishing gear called “wire leaders” stowed on board. The WCPFC banned their deployment on fishing lines to reduce shark bycatch, a move that may also have helped reduce the deliberate targeting of sharks.
Cook said the shark rules should be amended to make them easier to enforce; otherwise, they could potentially be broken under “cover of night.”
A hook from a longline, fitted with a wire trace leader for catching sharks, photographed off the coast of West Africa. Image © Tommy Trenchard/Greenpeace.
Aotearoa New Zealand brought forth a measure to strengthen protections for albatrosses threatened by longlining, but China, Taiwan and Japan nixed the plan, according to Stephanie Borrelle, a coordinator at U.K.-based NGO BirdLife International. She said in a statement to Mongabay that New Zealand presented a “complete body of scientific evidence,” but the three East Asian nations rejected the evidence in a “frankly astonishing” manner.
Delegates from China, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article.
An antipodean albatross (Diomedea antipodensis) flies near the sub-Antarctic islands of Aotearoa New Zealand in 2017.
An antipodean albatross (Diomedea antipodensis) flies near the sub-Antarctic islands of Aotearoa New Zealand in 2017. A proposal to strengthen protections for albatrosses, which are threatened by longline fishing, wasn’t adopted at the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) annual meeting in Fiji. Image courtesy of Stephanie Borrelle.
A thresher shark (Alopias vulpinus) packed for shipment at a market in Taipei, Taiwan. Image by Andre Seale/Marine Photobank.
Rumblings about governance
Experts said many of the conservation challenges that RFMOs like the WCPFC face are caused by consensus-based decision-making, which allows one party to block initiatives favored by the majority. Achieving consensus on stricter regulations can be challenging because research shows that industry representatives fill many of the seats on national delegations to RFMOs, and they don’t always prioritize conservation measures.
Gabrielle Carmine, a Ph.D. candidate at the Marine Geospatial Ecology Lab at Duke University in the U.S. who researches RFMOs, told Mongabay the consensus model had become so normalized that it was hard to galvanize reform efforts, and that the mechanics of RFMO meetings can mean attendees are occupied with narrower matters and have a hard time addressing fundamental governance and management issues.
Rumblings of discontent could be heard in Fiji, according to Steven Adolf, who attended the meeting as a senior adviser with Accountability.Fish, a U.S.-based advocacy group.
“There is a growing and outspoken irritation [among] NGOs on how the WCPFC is run by consensus-driven decision-making,” Adolf told Mongabay, lamenting “the power of a minority … to block and delay a range of urgently needed decisions.”
Accountability.Fish has pushed for journalists to be allowed into RFMO meetings — generally, they’re barred — and is among the groups pushing for the WCPFC to open its compliance report drafting meeting to NGO observers. This meeting addresses rules violations, such as cases of IUU fishing. Equivalent meetings are open to observers at other tuna RFMOs, but WCPFC rules allow the compliance committee chair to decide whether to open the meeting — and every year, it remains closed. No party proposed changing these rules at the Fiji meeting.
The FFA and another overlapping bloc of island nations, the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, opposed opening up the compliance process, Adolf said. These nations primarily deal in purse seining and he said one of their objections to reform is that purse seiners are overrepresented in compliance proceedings because longliners are so lightly regulated.
The FFA and PNA didn’t respond to questions from Mongabay.
Banner image: Crew members from Southeast Asia work to unload fish on purse seiners in the Western Pacific Ocean in 2023. Image courtesy of Francisco Blaha.
‘It was a shark operation’: Q&A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat
Citations:
Ewell, C., Cullis-Suzuki, S., Ediger, M., Hocevar, J., Miller, D., & Jacquet, J. (2017). Potential ecological and social benefits of a moratorium on transshipment on the high seas. Marine Policy, 81, 293-300. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2017.04.004
Petersson, M. T., Dellmuth, L. M., Merrie, A., & Österblom, H. (2019). Patterns and trends in non-state actor participation in regional fisheries management organizations. Marine Policy, 104, 146-156. doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2019.02.025
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