region, but with a high level of distant-water fleet activity in Micronesia. Balancing these ..... South Pacific Commission, New Caledonia. Herr, R. (1990) (Editor) ...
Governance of fisheries and aquaculture in the Pacific Islands region by Tim Adams Fisheries Resource Adviser South Pacific Commission Review paper for 3rd Dialogue on the ACP-EU Research Initiative Belize, December 1996 Introduction In any fisheries review involving the term governance, recent experience suggests that is still necessary to define what the word actually means. As with many words and phrases adapted by policy analysts to describe broad concepts, such as "bio-diversity" and "sustainable", there are a variety of shades of meaning, many of which are some way removed from the original intention. To most people, "governance" is what governments do. This impression is unfortunate when the very reason that the word is being brought to the forefront is to try and describe a process which emphasises non-governmental levels of action. The trick to conveying understanding is perhaps always to give "governance" an object. For example, the governance of a country is the way in which a country is governed (which process is often led by a body elected for this purpose, called a government). However, governance under government is only one of the forms of governance. Governance of a company is the way in which it is managed or administered (Sinclair, 1995). Governance of a fishery then must be the way in which the fishery is managed, by whoever is managing it. But we already know that fisheries management action can be carried out across a whole spectrum of levels and societal interactions, from the individual, through the community and national government, to the international organisation (Adams, 1996). So why do we have two words relating to fisheries - management and governance - covering essentially the same process? Obviously, the word governance has come to have a special meaning in political science, and comes with a whole evolving set of principles attached (McGlade, 1994, UNDP, 1996a & b). But the term fisheries management already encompasses these principles, in some of its many incarnations. Should we use the terms fisheries management and fisheries governance interchangeably? Perhaps not. The word governance is intended to make people stop and think about nongovernmental roles in fora where the word management is too often taken to refer to purely governmental action or, as Nauen (1996) suggests, technocratic and narrowly science-based expressions of fisheries management. The term co-management (e.g. Pomeroy & Williams, 1994) was adapted with a similar aim in mind - to express the need for non-governmental involvement in management, and for a management mechanism that takes people (particularly, in the North American context, indigenous people) into account as well as resource stock dynamics. The very fact that these altered wordings keep arising suggests that there is a continued need to consciously bear in mind the broader aspects of fisheries management. In fisheries research, assessment of the dynamics and interactions of populations is important, but it is not always remembered that one of those populations is always Homo sapiens. The term fisheries governance, in the context of this review, then is a particular type of fisheries management which, to paraphrase Nauen (1995), acknowledges the importance of societal interaction, reciprocity between government and governed, and the normalisation of only those rules meeting a high degree of social consensus. For example, it sidesteps the conventional fisheries management approach that "measures that are good for the fish stock must be for the long-term good of the fishers" with the pragmatic view that "management rules that are difficult to comply with will not be much practical use in sustaining the
resource". Under most of the definitions recently put forward, good governance is not so much a term used to describe a broad concept, like "management", but more to describe a particular philosophy of management, like "democracy", "communism", "anarchy", or even "quality circles". It is a management philosophy that is not purely "top-down", it emphasises the word "community" and, like all good management approaches, makes extensive use of dialogue and mutual agreement before taking action. The Pacific Islands region has had considerable and varied experience of fisheries governance mechanisms, both good and bad. However, as with the commonly-protested scarcity of "conventional" fisheries research in support of management, there has also been very little societal research relating to the practical consequences of fisheries management in the region. This review of governance will thus of necessity consist mainly of anecdote and opinion. Pacific Island governments have been eloquent in support of implementation of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over oceanic fisheries, but they have not been as quick to try and take over comprehensive control of coastal fisheries management, as has been suggested by McGlade (1994) to be the case by other governments. This has been because most Pacific Islands already have a strong tradition of local-area fishing rights ownership, wielded by communities and local chiefs. In the Pacific Islands, almost all the voters, and certainly most of the traditional power brokers, live in the coastal zone, and the majority of them make full use of their fisheries, and resist attempts to abrogate their authority. There are of course exceptions and differences across such a heterogeneous mix of societies, but in general, the Pacific Islands seem to have retained more of a "governance" component in their coastal fisheries management measures than other regions, and are actually sitting a considerable way along McGlade's (1994) recommended path towards local property rights, community management regimes and broad recognition of the complex nature of resources. Even though the Pacific Islands may have retained enough of a traditional infrastructure to be a relatively good foundation for the application of good governance principles, most governments have not until recently given active encouragement to community or traditional participation in coastal fisheries management. In a few cases there has been active discouragement, but the majority, until recently, have not pursued any policy at all and have been restricted to crisis management (usually involving an export commodity). Also, the Pacific Islands traditional philosophy of restricted use-rights over marine resources that was so enthusiastically extended to 200 miles from shore under UNCLOS, is not completely identical to a philosophy of governance that seeks consensual acceptance of all rules between government and governed. Instead, like most societies, it can be rather authoritarian when it comes to listening to the views of resource-users from outside the system. Indeed, the offshore is perhaps one area where the concept of governance needs some clarification in relation to fisheries management. "Fisheries governance" is generally taken to apply to the relationship between those in authority over a fishery and those who participate in a fishery or otherwise use a resource. But how exactly should governance principles apply to the international and transboundary relationships that are so important in certain aspects of highly migratory fisheries management, where "authority" is currently more nominal than actual? Just what do "local property rights" and "community management regimes" mean in this context? Adams (1996) points out that each fishery in each society has its own different "balance point" on the scale of management intervention. Some fisheries are more effectively managed by governments or intergovernmental bodies and some are more effectively managed by local communities and non-government bodies, with various mixtures in between. There is no universal fisheries management panacea, neither the Individual Transferable Quota quoted by the economist, nor the Marine Protected Area quoted by the conservationist, nor the Traditional Usage Right over Fisheries quoted by the anthropologist, nor even perhaps the
Good Governance system quoted by the political scientist. There must be a careful consideration of all the options and, above all, strong dialogue and feedback between all participants. However, it is clear that more emphasis on socially-appropriate fisheries governance systems is very desirable, and probably long overdue in most countries, and this is an area which the Pacific Islands region can perhaps hope to help illuminate for the benefit of the rest of the world. And not only the rest of the world, but also for certain governments and community leaders within the region itself. There are a multitude of lessons being learned but, unfortunately, not many of them are being recorded or remembered. Types of fishery within the Pacific Islands region In terms of their management, there are three main types of fishery in the Pacific Islands region:1. Oceanic fisheries: fisheries for tropical tuna, which are carried out mainly by distantwater fishing vessels of non-Pacific Island nations, within the EEZ's of, and high seas adjacent to, Pacific Island nations. Within the SPC Fisheries Statistical Area (see Figure 1), excluding Philippines and Indonesian waters, this fishery currently catches around 1 million tonnes per year whole weight of skipjack tuna (Katsuwonus pelamis), yellowfin tuna (Thunnus albacares), bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) and albacore tuna (Thunnus alalunga) (SPC, 1996). 2. Coastal fisheries for domestic consumption: multispecies, mainly reef and lagoon, fisheries carried out mainly by Pacific Island nationals in the small-scale commercial and artisanal sectors, using hook and line, net, spear, traditional trap or weir and hand-collection. This interlinked series of fisheries takes around 90,000 tonnes per year, of several hundred species of fish and invertebrates, within the territorial waters of SPC Island member countries and territories (Dalzell et al, 1996). 3. Coastal fisheries for export: a more limited range of species, generally those which are not consumed locally and/or which obtain a high price overseas, are exported, mainly to Chinese-speaking areas of the world. These fisheries are carried out mainly by Pacific Islanders and are relatively low in total volume: probably less than 10,000 tonnes per year exported weight, within the territorial waters of SPC Island member countries and territories (Dalzell et al, 1996). (Note: the products of these fisheries are often subject to considerable processing whereas the products of the domestic food fishery are generally marketed fresh, although live export is becoming more common). (There are other fisheries that can be distinguished as a management class, notably the tourist game sport-fishery, but they are of minor importance across the region as a whole. There are also distinct sub-sets of the classes described above, notably the small-scale Pacific Islandowned longline oceanic fishery and the aquarium fish coastal export fishery, but it is probably not useful to separate these out in this brief discussion of general principles.) Figure 1 - SPC Fisheries Statistical Area Governance aspects of the management of these three main fishery types are considered under each heading as follows:Oceanic Fisheries The management of western tropical Pacific tuna fisheries has long been a major item on the regional political agenda. Indeed, it is perhaps one of the few major unifying influences on the
heterogeneous mixture of communities that make up the Pacific Islands region. This is both because the fishery is seen as very important in the future economic development of all of these otherwise resource-poor islands, and because the fishery has, until recently, been almost entirely carried out by distant-water fishing nations, thus promoting internal regional unity in the face of external interests. As more commercial oceanic fishery capacity is taken up by Pacific Islanders themselves, and more Pacific Island nations become "fishing nations" as well as "coastal States", this solidarity is expected to erode. But in the first decade and a half of its life, as a result of that solidarity, the Forum Fisheries Agency has been able to promote surprising progress for an under-developed region in the implementation of certain international fisheries governance principles. Other regional ocean fisheries management bodies tend to have had more of a mixture of opposing interests amongst their membership. "Governance", in the context of transboundary, oceanic, commercial fisheries obviously has a different scope from that of national and community fisheries. For example, the fact that national interests are clearly identifiable tends to bring government even more to the fore, and several nations are primarily represented on the Forum Fisheries Committee not by fisheries managers but by foreign affairs officials, without thinking this at all remarkable. Only two Pacific island nations, Fiji and Solomon Islands, currently have a significant national capacity in the industrial-scale fishery, landing tuna to domestic canneries. This capacity has been fairly static for some time, and the ownership of the industry is overwhelmingly governmental (or domestic government-foreign joint-venture). As a consequence, there has been little scope for non-governmental involvement in the Pacific Islands side of the management of oceanic fisheries, even if such had been considered possible given the sovereignty issues that the international consideration of these fisheries always raises. But with the recent increasing involvement of private sector small-scale longlining in several Pacific Island countries, some means of taking non-governmental fishing industry views into account will have to be developed. In Fiji, for example, this has been through attempts to set up fishing industry advisory councils and the development of lobbying associations. So far, the utility of such associations has been greatly diminished by internal rivalry, particularly the competition for government concessions and incentives, and so far there has been no external challenge strong enough to draw the private-sector operators into accord for long. Although the independent nations of the Pacific Islands region have been able to implement some comparatively decisive and conservation-oriented international tuna fishery management interventions through the Forum Fisheries Agency this has, as mentioned, been largely as a result of the convergence of views possible within the limited scope of the membership, which involves only coastal States. From some distant-water fishing fleet points of view, this restricted dialogue falls well short of the principles of good governance. The Pacific Island nations have been seriously considering the potentials and pitfalls of more formal and open tuna fishery management arrangements both amongst themselves and with distant-water fishing nations for some time, starting with the conferences that led to the establishment of the Forum Fisheries Agency in 1978 (see Herr 1990), followed by the inconclusive consultations towards a management arrangement for South Pacific albacore fisheries (see Adams 1990) that were sparked by the "long driftnets" controversy in 1988/9, and interspersed throughout by meetings of the countries party to the Nauru Agreement to discuss the allocation of licences for purse-seining in the western tropical Pacific. It would be futile to go into detail about the international management of Pacific Island oceanic fisheries here, since circumstances are changing so rapidly as a result of the longdelayed coming into force of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. A series of international consultations involving major stakeholders in the Western tropical Pacific
tuna fishery is taking place with a view to reaching agreement on the form that the future management regime will take (see SPC/FFA, 1996). However, it is a general principle (and one of the principles behind certain government's espousal of ITQ systems (Kearney, 1996)) that resource owners tend, on average, to be more conservation-oriented than unenfranchised resource users. Some Pacific Island fisheries managers feel worried, not just by the diminution of sovereignty implied by the admittance of distant-water fishing nations into the Pacific Islands region tuna fishery decision-making process, but that the balance of decision-making may tip too far in favour of purely exploitative interests. Taking these worries into account, and building in mechanisms to address them, has become a major item on the agenda of the facilitators of this international consultative process. The Pacific Islands region is by no means homogeneous either in its tuna fisheries or in its political approach to the management of these fisheries. There are definite sub-regional interests and rivalries that have often threatened to jeopardize the solidarity that provided the economic bargaining platform for the small islands of the region in the past. The "western tropical Pacific" tuna fishery is traditionally the major factor in all regional deliberations, but this fishery for surface-swimming skipjack and yellowfin, caught mainly by purse-seiners and destined for canneries, is most prolific from 10°N to 10°S and towards the western margin of the Pacific. The FFA subgroup of "parties to the Nauru Agreement" that was self-convened to consider this fishery excludes a large number of Pacific Island countries, amongst them most of the Polynesian islands, and this has been an occasional cause of tension. The large-scale longline and troll (and, for a short time, driftnet) fishery for southern albacore, although this is a much smaller fishery, concerns mainly the countries to the south of the region, and does not significantly involve any of the parties to the Nauru Agreement. The small-scale longline fishery for yellowfin and bigeye "sashimi" tuna is much broader in geographical scope than both of the other two major fisheries, with Pacific Island vessels active in all corners of the region, but with a high level of distant-water fleet activity in Micronesia. Balancing these various factors, and building mechanisms to account for inevitable future changes in the balance and type of oceanic fisheries, will also be a major concern for all participants in the continuing consultative process. Finally, regarding governance mechanisms, it should perhaps be noted that Pacific Island nations have already delegated many aspects of the management of tuna fisheries to the regional level, and make most decisions collectively through the Forum Fisheries Committee, guided by the scientific advice of the South Pacific Commission. Virtually all tuna fishery data-processing is done at regional level (and national databases are now satellites of the regional database, rather than being the fundamental database building blocks of the early 1980s), whilst virtually all bilateral access agreement negotiations involve the advisory services of the Forum Fisheries Agency. A significant part of the regional tuna fishery is now managed entirely at the regional level, through the multilateral Pacific Island - USA access agreement administered by the Forum Fisheries Agency. (It is perhaps notable that the "fishing community", in the form of private-sector US fishing industry representatives, has a substantial voice in the regular consultations that occur between the national parties to this treaty). Coastal food fisheries At the government level, small-scale fisheries for domestic consumption tend to be managed mainly by inertia. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In general, there has never been much need for government coastal fishery management intervention because of the continuing tradition in most areas of community marine tenure, and of management at the local level. Most governments maintain a basic set of "passive" legal measures, set in place some years ago by colonial governments to help in mitigating major damage to resources. These include
minimum size limits that can be applied particularly at the point of sale, and limitations on the type of gear that can be used for commercial fishing, such as minimum mesh sizes. In most countries, any legal measures do not apply to subsistence fisheries. Active measures such as quotas, that would require continuous monitoring or feedback to adjust and apply, are virtually non-existent (see Campbell & Lodge 1994) and would be almost impossible to apply, using purely governmental action, to this type of diffuse, multispecies, artisanal fishery (although they have been applied to single-species commercial export fisheries (see later), particularly trochus fisheries in countries where the shell has been introduced outside its natural range (Clarke et al., 1995)). Although active management by Government is limited, these food fisheries are usually subject to active governance by local communities. In the Pacific Islands, a large proportion of the people fish regularly themselves, and the state of fisheries and the state of the lagoon are major topics of everyday conversation. Information and action can be very closely linked at the community level. However, the strength of the community-government linkage and feedback mechanism varies greatly from place to place, and it is usually weaker than it should be for a healthy governance system. There has been great variation across different Pacific Island countries in the way that governments approach the issue of managing community linkages. Although a long tradition of marine tenure is a fairly common characteristic across different Pacific Island societies (perhaps enhanced in comparison to prehistoric continental coastal societies because the prospects for a nomadic lifestyle are limited on a small island), modern government approaches to community tenure have ranged from acceptance and support, to attempts to extirpate it entirely. As an example of "nationalisation" of fishing rights, the declaration of what was arguably the world's major national "exclusive economic zone" (a geographical box from 15°S to 25.3°S and from 173°W to 177°W) by Tonga in 1887 (Petelo et al, 1995), also signalled the formal takeover of all local fishing rights by the Tongan Crown. But although the decision-making responsibility of local communities is legally eroded, they still have influence. For example, the circles of giant clams that have been gathered on the lagoon floor by the Ministry of Fisheries in an attempt to improve the prospects for density-dependent fertilisation in these endangered molluscs, only survive human predation when they are within waters controlled by villages. In some other countries, the denial of village-level responsibility has been less formal, but more of a long-standing policy, justified by over-exploitation problems that are commonly experienced in entrepreneurial export commodity fisheries (see later), or by the use of destructive fishing methods (such as dynamite) by an irresponsible minority (although the latter has become gradually less common in most areas since the end of World War II). Or, from even earlier years, the desire by certain colonial governments to exploit marine export commodities to the full, particularly pearl and pearl shell. At the other end of the scale, customary fishing rights have been enshrined in law in several countries with varying degrees of comprehensiveness. Legal recognition of these rights and the role of rights-owners in management, is particularly strong in Fiji, whilst retaining a notable degree of flexibility (including the definition and redefinition of rights by tribunal). At the present time, it would probably be fair to state that traditional fishing rights are increasing in strength across the region generally, not just because fisheries departments are finally realising the problems of trying to actively manage village fisheries themselves, but because of a general groundswell of public opinion in favour of strengthening community values. Bob Johannes' book "Words of the Lagoon" (Johannes 1978) has been influential here, bridging, as it does, the worlds of the fisheries biologist and the anthropologist. Some of this new encouragement for community management has reached formal expression, such as the Cook Islands Fisheries Act of 1989 which devolves considerable management
responsibility to local Island Councils (although these do not necessarily coincide with traditional leadership). In terms of the maintenance of sustainable food fisheries, the poor formal linkage between Pacific Islands government and community experienced in recent years has not mattered a great deal, since these domestic food fisheries do not appear to have been critically overexploited in most areas, and are generally still capable of sustaining much of the protein nutrition of existing users despite the very high fish-consumption of Pacific Islanders (Adams et al, in press). In addition, the lack of formal government-community interaction is often mitigated by a high level of personal contact between government officers and communities. Indeed, on some small islands, a fisheries officer may be related to a significant number of the inhabitants (pers. obs.). However, these Pacific Island domestic food-fisheries are overwhelmingly subsistence fisheries, and commercialisation is inevitably gaining importance, as has already been happening in some of the more economically developed countries of the region. Commercialisation, at least the type of entrepreneurial venture that is being heavily promoted by most governments of the region, carries with it a strong motivation for constant expansion, and involves only a small number of specialists, which is somewhat at odds with the subsistence approach where a large number of part-time users fish only for long enough to satisfy their immediate requirements. As the western world knows to its cost, the carrying capacity of the natural environment for any one fishery (although it is cyclical in magnitude, as is becoming evident) provides an inevitable limit to commercial growth. The rectification of overcapitalisation is now one of the main problems facing the administration (i.e. the governance) of many modern commercial fisheries (Mace, in press). Pacific Island countries follow events in external fisheries with interest and are prepared to learn from the lessons offered. For example, following the restructuring of the New Zealand and Australian fishing industries (with the removal of excess capacity through the introduction of individual transferable quota systems in the late 1980s), and the saturation of certain fisheries in Hawaii, there was a massive demand for entry into the Fiji deepwater snapper and small-scale tuna longline fisheries by new joint-venture fishing companies. The Fiji Fisheries Division decided to risk the wrath of potential investors and national planners alike and erect legislation which would limit the issue of licences in these fisheries in 1990. This decision came under criticism not only from economic development planners, but also from external fishery experts who pointed out that such a restriction was hardly justifiable on biological grounds, given the underexploited state of the western tropical Pacific tuna fishery. However, this management decision was not taken on biological grounds, but on economic grounds, with the main intention being the avoidance of fishery overcapitalisation, and overburdening existing infrastructure. There was a conscious decision that the limits of this fishery ought to be approached asymptotically and not by the usual path of over-investment and retrenchment. It was felt that the possible price to be paid in lost investment opportunity was much less than the price that would otherwise almost certainly be paid in bankruptcy and industry restructuring. This management action was notable not only because it was pre-emptive and non biologically based, but because it was taken with the consensual accord of existing fishers. Indeed, existing fishers were very happy to see further entry into the fishery restricted at the time, and the support of industry was one of the main reasons why the measure could be made into law over the objections of development planners, and why it could be effectively implemented with very little extra overhead on the fisheries department. The subsequent management path of the Fiji small-scale longline fishery has not been completely smooth, of course, but the initial implementation is a good example of how the application of governance principles can assist the task of management in certain fisheries. Measures that have the consent of all parties stand a much smaller risk of either being ignored or flouted.
Although this example was from a tuna fishery, the same consensual principles apply to coastal fisheries. To take another example from Fiji, the introduction of a law banning the taking or ownership of triton trumpet shells, Charonia tritonis, in 1976 was based on admirable ecological principles - tritons are one of the few predators of the Crown-of-thorns starfish that are occasionally so damaging to coral reefs - but did not take any social factors into account. Triton shells are of major cultural significance in Fijian society and, as a result, this complete ban is unenforceable. Although Pacific Island domestic food-fisheries have been manageable, by and large, at the community level without active Government intervention, inexorable trends of increasing commercialisation and increasing population will require some adaptation. Pacific Islands governments, as well as appreciating that these domestic food fisheries cannot be controlled entirely at the government level, are also coming to appreciate that they cannot continue to leave the entire responsibility within the hands of local communities (in many cases without government even being aware that this is what it is doing). Governments both need to recognise the rôle that communities already play in the management of food fisheries in many islands (to devolve some of the formal responsibility back to the community level and to improve linkages with communities), but also to be able to provide a superstructure to supplement and support community capabilities, particularly when it comes to dealing with outsiders, with entrepreneurial approaches, and facilitating communication and experiencesharing between communities. The other area of fisheries management concern, which will require better linkage between formal and community sectors, is in the governance of fisheries close to urban areas and capital islands. The factors of high population density, the urban drift of large numbers of people unlinked to local fisheries access systems, increased commercial fishing pressure, and even the developed-world concept of sport-fishing, all combine to make fisheries close to urban areas one of the main priority targets for improving the governance aspects of fisheries management in Pacific Island countries. In some urban areas, traditional fishing rights ownership systems may have broken down entirely, and modern co-management mechanisms involving new community associations and special interest groups may be necessary. Thankfully, these urban areas are not hopelessly numerous. Pacific Island urban hierarchies are extremely "macrocephalic", and there is often only one major population concentration in each country, around the capital city or island (Doumenge, in press). Most Pacific Island fisheries departments are actually very young. Colonial governments did not take much notice of fisheries in the Pacific, concentrating most of their interest on agriculture, and it was recognised early that there was little scope for commercial development of reef and lagoon fisheries (apart from certain specialised export commodities covered in the next section). Fisheries Departments as a distinct entity within Pacific Island governments did not start to come into being until the late 1950s. Many countries did not have any governmental administration of fisheries until the 1970s or '80s, and this was often driven as much by the need to consider the management of distant water tuna fisheries under the new ownership of EEZs, as to manage domestic fisheries. Nowadays most Pacific Island fisheries departments are administratively mature and, realising that it is impossible to completely manage multispecies subsistence reef fisheries at the government level, feel able to step back and allow local communities more scope to exercise the custodial capabilities that they have long possessed (in western Melanesia, local tenurial traditions may have existed for tens of thousands of years). However, it is apparent that the encroachments of the cash economy, urbanisation, and the subtle destabilising influence of off-island educational systems, mean that traditions of customary fisheries tenure cannot cope alone and that many communities will require a considerable measure of support and cooperation in order to adapt to changing circumstance.
In summary, the development of workable systems of fisheries governance, that involve both government and non-government levels of responsibility, and a high level of dialogue, are probably the only realistic way forward. The highest-priority domestic food-fisheries for governance action are likely to be in areas where existing community systems have been perturbed to the greatest extent - in food-fisheries which are becoming highly commercialised, and near urban areas. Coastal export fisheries Coastal export fisheries are separated here from coastal domestic fisheries because, as well as usually involving different species, they normally involve different types of governance, even though they are both carried out mainly by rural Pacific Islanders. The domestic food fisheries which make up the bulk of day-to-day fishing activities, as mentioned above, tend to require little government interference. By contrast, it is the export fisheries which take up most of the time of government fisheries officers involved in coastal fisheries management, not usually because of a strategic policy decision that these fisheries need more intervention, but because this is where they are most often called in to play a reactive "fire-fighting" role and address urgent problems identified by the fishing community, by politicians, or by the general public. The reasons for this difference may be several:•
the marine organisms exploited for export are often not species that are traditionally used for food. Fewer traditional mechanisms controlling their harvest may have evolved, with thus fewer restraints on overexploitation. (This argument is not put forward strongly since traditional governance techniques, where they exist, can also easily be invoked for non-traditional fisheries. It is not the organism that matters so much as the way the fishing is carried out).
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because these are species that are not traditionally used for food, the need to harvest is not continuous (as with staple protein sources), and can be carried out as an occasional pulse fishery to suit the availability of marketing opportunities. These pulses can be carried out at a level that would be considered gross overfishing in a regime that aimed to maintain a continuous harvest, but which will enable the population to recover before the next pulse is due. (However, it is unlikely that such strategic decisions to govern a fishery by "pulsed harvesting" are made in all cases, since there is little traditional knowledge about the regeneration time of some of the newer resources. Also, some of the fisheries for organisms which are traditionally known to be slow-maturing (like giant clam) were carried out at levels beyond even the most optimistic hopes of recovery within a reasonable time-frame.)
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Organisms that are not used much for food are perhaps not seen as a high priority for maintenance. Where the community has a need for cash (and all Pacific Island communities have a need for cash, if only to pay church tithes and school fees) coastal marine resources are often the only ready source of income, and the small fraction of species that fetch good cash prices are perhaps less reluctantly overexploited than those that sustain the family. It should be noted that a high price on the export market does not mean that a species is highly valued locally, and the most vigorous local management measures are probably applied to the most locally high-valued species.
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Unlike Pacific island food fisheries, where exploitation is spread widely across the whole resource-base, the opportunities for earning cash in remote island communities are confined to the very narrow range of high value species (and/or non-perishable products) that are economically feasible to export under conditions of high transport
costs and minimal economies of scale. Overexploitation is thus much more likely for the narrowly-based cash fisheries than for the widely-based food fisheries. •
Export commodity fisheries are always cash fisheries. All exports from the Pacific Islands have to have a fairly high unit value to offset high economic overheads, and high unit value commodities tend to attract the type of investor who is more interested in making a quick profit than maintaining a fishery. The phrases "fly-bynight", "carpet-bagger" and "reef-rapist" have all been noted in official correspondence about such fisheries by SPC member country fisheries officers. These phrases are perhaps a little unkind. A lot of the investment that is put into Pacific Island export fisheries turns out to be overinvestment because of over-optimism engendered by the sheer lack of information about the prospects for these fisheries, both on the government and the private sector side. Even where information is available, the opportunity for the proper vetting of investment proposals is often not given, particularly where there are pressures for "fast-track" approval and deregulation to "reduce the overhead on the private sector". This is one aspect of fisheries governance, within the government system itself, that needs attention, although the increasing tendency for private sector lending institutions to consult fisheries administrations before giving loans is welcome.
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Although harvesting itself is usually carried out by Pacific Islanders, the commercial side of Pacific Island export fisheries is usually carried out either by foreigners, or by non-traditional entrepreneurs. A major part of the fishery is thus outside the oversight of any traditional or community management mechanism. The constraint that many Pacific Islands nations place on foreign seafood export businesses - that all harvesting be carried out by nationals (and often from their own fishing grounds) - is occasionally a two-edged sword, since traditional marine tenure would usually be well capable of regulating access by outsiders. It is less efficient at restricting access by members of the rights owning group (particularly when - as is often the case - it is a prominent member of the rights-owning group who is sponsoring the exploitation), or in manipulating the external factors of marketing and public opinion.
Distilling all these considerations together, the two main factors behind the high level of government "fire-fighting" intervention in Pacific island export fisheries are the fact that these fisheries are usually perceived as being overexploited and that they involve entirely cashoriented external trade. It would be instructive to perform a time-and-motion study on the activities of the average Pacific Island fisheries department. Most would probably show that the greatest amount of time is spent on export fisheries, including addressing complaints by fishing communities, vetting investment proposals, answering complaints and concerns by the public, and providing information for the Minister and politicians about export fisheries. Most of the official management plans and policies that are drawn up are for these fisheries, since these are where most of the problems are perceived to lie, even though they are usually a small percentage of the overall coastal fishery. How is the governance of these fisheries to be improved? This review will not attempt to provide comprehensive answers, which would inevitably be glib given the amount of consideration that still remains to be given to the topic, and given the different circumstances across the 22 island countries and territories of the region. Improved coordination of seafood export investment/development proposal appraisal amongst different government departments has already been mentioned as one major bottleneck in preventing over-, or foolish, investment in many countries. Another major need is for the development of strategic plans that provide more of a chance for tackling problems at root, rather than the present desperate fighting of continual rearguard actions.
Most of the information necessary to address the question of improving the management of Pacific Island export fisheries would have to be drawn out through a coherent in-country review involving interviews with Pacific Island fisheries staff, trade officials, entrepreneurs and the fishing community. However, even here, in completely cash-oriented fisheries, the fact that the communities doing most of the fishing are the same communities that do most of the domestic food fishing means that the governance approach of increased local responsibility, better dialogue, and consensual decisions should carry considerable promise. Community-initiated and enforced moratoria over local trochus fisheries are a traditional tendency in parts of Melanesia and villages have responded remarkably to public education and encouragement from Government fisheries officers in Vanuatu (Jimmy, 1995). Indeed, moratoria and limited commercial fishery openings, proposed and enforced by customary authorities, are probably one the most promising socially-appropriate tools that can be brought to bear on the problem of managing over-exploited Pacific Island export commodity fisheries. "Marine Protected Areas", provided that ownership is not taken away by the State and that the MPA-owning community has control over the disposition of any harvest (either from "spillover" into surrounding owned areas, or from temporary opening or rotation of the area itself), are another way of describing this tool. Governance of Aquaculture The governance of aquaculture is not a major issue in the Pacific Islands region at present. Aquaculture is of minor importance compared to fisheries, and has not yet led to major contention. However, it is an issue that will need to be increasingly addressed in the future, and the region will need to be prepared to adapt the best of aquaculture governance systems evolved in other regions. That having been said, several issues are perhaps relevant:•
Aquaculture projects that are based on trying to produce an exportable commodity generally have not done well in the Pacific Islands, whilst the domestic commercial market for fish is high-priced enough, in relation to the overall cost of production, to make aquaculture for domestic markets an economically sustainable proposition in many countries. The recent growth of Tilapia farming in Fiji seems to bear this out. Another specific market that holds promise is the large demand for bait by expanding Pacific Islands-based small-scale tuna longline fleets. Livebait works well, and aquaculture can ensure a steady supply of hardy species like milkfish, the culture of which has been long-established in Kiribati, and could be expanded in other countries. These are both (tilapia and milkfish) farming systems that can be carried out on a very small-scale, requiring minimal capital investment and providing subsistence nutritional spin-offs. Yet these small-scale diffuse aquaculture activities are not particularly attractive to foreign investment, and may not generate much foreign exchange, so considerable government effort is instead diverted towards trying to develop export-based aquaculture industries that are only sustainable as long as they are propped up by government concessions on taxes or tariffs.
•
Many Pacific Island countries have no legal or even policy infrastructure to govern aquacultural development. Whilst agricultural norms are often adapted to apply to land-based ponds, cage-, raft-, or pen-culture in marine areas has to take into account the whole different set of established values inherent in customary marine tenure. For example, in Fiji, it is technically feasible for the Lands Department to issue a lease over a portion of seabed, but under current law, if that portion of seabed falls within a registered customary fishing rights area (an occurrence which is almost inevitable), the disposition of any organism cultivated there appears to be legally under the control of the registered fishing rights owners, not the cultivator. Indeed, if the cultivator had to use a net to collect these organisms, or if these organisms were to be
caught for sale by any other method apart from spear, they would a require an annual fishing licence which would only be issued by the government with the written consent of the traditional custodian. Of course this means in practice that any potential sea-farmer from outside the system must maintain the goodwill of the customary rights owners, and this in itself is a factor promoting good governance, in the sense of promoting dialogue between stakeholders. However, it does leave potential commercial farmers a little vulnerable to changes in circumstance, and is guaranteed to make lending institutions nervous.. •
Aquaculture is a fairly new concept in most Pacific Islands, and even where forms of aquaculture were traditionally practiced, they were never widespread. There is thus not the comprehensive base of grassroots tradition and local interest to guide the governance of aquaculture as there is with domestic food fisheries, and a large part of the initial burden will thus fall on government. Although there is little commercial aquaculture in place, Pacific Island fisheries offices are bombarded with a large number of speculative aquaculture proposals from potential investors from all parts of the world, and most of these require a high degree of specialist knowledge to appraise. Many of them contain no details since they involve supposedly proprietary technology. A lot of Pacific Island countries do not have the specialist knowledge nationally available to decide whether a proposal is realistic, or if it is simply a vehicle for a tax write-off, or to access the investment funds that are available only to joint-venture partnerships with indigenous people.
•
Although aquacultural production is minuscule in relation to coastal fisheries production in the region, and although aquaculture has not yet led to any major governance headaches, aquaculture research and development support actually consumes a major part of the research budget and staff activity of some Pacific Island fisheries departments (Adams et. al., 1995). This is perhaps an appropriate positive strategic response to problems of declining food production from the capture fishery, but it has been alternatively suggested that this is perhaps a good example of large foreign aid projects having an unbalancing influence on the direction of domestic fisheries policy.
Geographical scales of governance In this review so far, we have discussed some of the roles of governments and communities, and the relationship between national and local levels in the governance of Pacific Island fisheries. However, the regional inter-governmental level is a further dimension important to the effective governance of Pacific Island fisheries, at least in the medium-term (and possibly beyond, depending on the future expression of Pacific Islands regionalism). The historical decisions by Pacific Island countries to jointly invest in the governance of the western tropical Pacific tuna fishery (with resource research carried out by the South Pacific Commission and coordination, compliance and other advisory functions vested in the Forum Fisheries Agency) have already been mentioned, but the regional "economies of scale" factor also works in favour of coastal fisheries governance. The Pacific Islands adjudicate an enormous area of sea, but their human and financial resources are limited. The pooling of expertise and external assistance through regional organisations is one way of mitigating the need to maintain a cadre of national specialists in every discipline, and also provides a medium for the sharing of experience. The very existence of national fisheries departments in many Pacific Island countries owes much to the co-ordinative and advisory efforts of the South Pacific Commission in its early years.
The regional level is not a decision-making level in Pacific Island coastal fisheries. Indeed, the only trans-boundary coastal zone within the SPC work-area that might mandate a supranational focus of governance is the common coast of the Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya mainlands, but these two countries are not even within the same political region. But although they lack sovereign authority, existing regional fishery organisations have important educational, expert advisory and coordinative rôles to play in the governance of local fisheries, and this rôle becomes proportionally more important for smaller countries. One point made in Adams (1996) is that fisheries management is likely to be most effective if the scale of the management unit approximates the scale of the stock. itself. For extremely highly-migratory species like certain great whales, management decisions are perhaps most effectively based on the global scale and an international organisation with an extremely wide membership. For highly migratory species like tuna, the region is an appropriate scale for consideration, and this is recognised in the existing institutional structure, in the Law of the Sea and in the increasing emphasis that is now being put into research treating the western tropical Pacific "warm pool" as a Large Marine Ecosystem. This is not to say that decision-making should necessarily rest entirely at the regional level, but that decisions should take into account their likely influence across the effective range of the stock, and involve the stakeholders within that entire range. For domestic fisheries in the Pacific Islands, which are overwhelmingly coral reef-associated fisheries, the main decision-making unit (at least in the governance of locally-recruiting species) is probably be at the scale of the individual reef, or small island. National and regional organisations have an important advisory and coordinatory rôle to play, and there are also special cases to be taken into account. These include fisheries which are producing mainly export commodities or which are promoted by broad-area entrepreneurial buyers, and "crisis fisheries" (such as those involving endangered species, or those where local communities structures have broken down), which require a more national focus for decision-making. Some coastal fisheries involving organisms with long-lived lived, widely-drifting larval or juvenile stages may actually be international or inter-island in scope and require a much broader scale of decision-making. Under prevailing current patterns, certain reefs or islands may be disproportionately important as sources of recruitment for several downstream fisheries. The management of the spawning stock in these "source" reefs will have a great influence on any fisheries carried out on "sink" reefs, even if they are in a different country. Unfortunately, little is yet known about the relative importance of such effects, or how widespread such influences are likely to be in practice, or whether more direct attention needs to be paid to their governance at the regional level. In summary, over the Pacific Island region, there are three main geographical levels of focus for the governance of different fisheries:•
Regional:- tuna fisheries
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National:- coastal fisheries for export
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Local:- domestic food fisheries
Again, it is not suggested that decision-making power is, or should be, restricted to these levels, but that these particular fisheries are most effectively considered at these particular scales. The aspect of good governance comes into the mechanisms by which these levels are linked; how institutions at each of these levels interact with each other and with the people who do the fishing, and how both the institutions and the people who do the fishing interact
with other "stakeholders" in the marine environment (including the other components of the marine environment). References Adams, T. J. H. (1990) Chairman's Report from the SPAR Scientific Advisory Group on Albacore to the 3rd Consultation on Arrangements for South Pacific Albacore Fisheries Management. South Pacific Commission & Forum Fisheries Agency, Noumea, New Caledonia, October 1990. Adams T. J. H. (1996) Modern Institutional Framework for Reef Fisheries Management. In Reef Fisheries. Eds. N. Polunin & C. Roberts. Chapman & Hall, Fish & Fisheries series, London. pp. 337-360. Adams T. J. H. , Richards, A. , Dalzell, P. J. & Bell, L. (1995) Research on Fisheries in the Pacific Islands Region. In: Manuscript Collection of Country Statements and Background Papers of the SPC/FFA Workshop on the Management of South Pacific Inshore Fisheries: Volume II: 87-166. (Eds. P. Dalzell & T. Adams). UK/SPC Integrated Coastal Fisheries Management Project Technical Document No. 12. South Pacific Commission, Nouméa. Adams, T. J. H., Dalzell, P. J. and Farman, R. (in press). Status of Pacific Island Reef Fisheries. Proceedings of the 7th International Coral Reef Symposium. Panama. Clarke, R. & Ianelli, J. (1995) Current paradigms in trochus management. In: Manuscript Collection of Country Statements and Background Papers of the SPC/FFA Workshop on the Management of South Pacific Inshore Fisheries: Volume I: 371-414. (Eds. P. Dalzell & T. Adams). UK/SPC Integrated Coastal Fisheries Management Project Technical Document No. 11. South Pacific Commission, Nouméa. Campbell, W. and M. Lodge, eds. 1993. Regional Compendium of Fisheries Legislation (Western Pacific Region). Honiara, Solomon Islands: Forum Fisheries Agency, and Rome, Italy: FAO. (GCP/INT/466/NOR, Field Report 93/31, FL/WPSCS/93/19). 3 vols. 1707pp, Dalzell, P. J., Adams, T. J. H. and Polunin, N. V. C. (1996). Coastal Fisheries in the Pacific Islands. Oceanography and Marine Biology: An Annual Review 34, 395-531 Doumenge, J-P (in prep) Urbanization in the Pacific Islands. In Geography of the Pacific Islands. Ed. M. Rapaport. University of Hawaii at Manoa. Honolulu. Jimmy, R (1995) Trochus fishery management in Vanuatu. In: Manuscript Collection of Country Statements and Background Papers of the SPC/FFA Workshop on the Management of South Pacific Inshore Fisheries: Volume II: 221-4. (Eds. P. Dalzell & T. Adams). UK/SPC Integrated Coastal Fisheries Management Project Technical Document No. 12. South Pacific Commission, Nouméa. Johannes R. E. (1980) Words of the Lagoon: Fishing and Marine Lore in the Palau District of Micronesia. University of California Press: Berkeley and Los Angeles. 320pp. Kearney, R. (1996) Resource ownership; customary marine tenure and individual transferable quotas. In: Report on the SPC/FFA Workshop on the Management of Pacific Island Inshore Fisheries, 1995: Keynote Papers and Discussion. (Eds. T. Adams & P. Dalzell). Manuscript pending publication, at Internet URL http:// www.spc.org.nc/ spc/ programs/ coastalfisheries/ icfmap/ reports/ wshop3.htm
Mace, P. M. (in press) Developing and sustaining world fisheries resources: the state of the science and management. Proceedings of the 2nd World Fisheries Congress. Eds. D. A. Hancock and J. P. Beumer. Australian Society for Fish Biology. Brisbane, Australia. McGlade, J. (1994) Governance of Fisheries and Aquaculture: Patterns of interaction between society and government. Report to DGXIV of the European Union. Nauen, C. E. (1995) Governance of fisheries and aquaculture in Southern and Eastern Africa and in the Southern Indian Ocean: A short review, and related considerations on flows and communication of research results. ACP-EU Fisheries Research Report 1: 125-144 Nauen, C. E., Bangoura, N. S., and Sall, A. (1996) Governance of aquatic systems in west and central Africa: Lessons of the past, possibilities for the future. ACP-EU Fisheries Research Report 2. Petelo, A., Matoto, S. V. & Gillett, R. (1995) The case for community-based fisheries management in Tonga. In: Manuscript collection of country statements and background papers of the SPC/FFA workshop on the management of South Pacific inshore fisheries: Volume II: p 487-493. (Eds. P. Dalzell & T. Adams). Integrated Coastal Fisheries Management Project Technical Document No 12. South Pacific Commission, New Caledonia. Herr, R. (1990) (Editor) The Forum Fisheries Agency: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects. FFA Monograph No 2. Institute of Pacific Studies of the University of the South Pacific, Suva. Pomeroy, R. S. & Williams, M. J. (1994) Fisheries Co-management and Small-scale Fisheries: A Policy Brief. International Center for Living Aquatic Resources Management, Manila, 15p. Ruddle K. (1996) Traditional management of reef fishing. In Reef Fisheries. Eds. N. Polunin & C. Roberts. Chapman & Hall, Fish & Fisheries series, London. pp. 315-335. Sinclair, J. (Ed. 1995) Collins Cobuild English Dictionary. HarperCollins. London SPC (1996) Status of Tuna Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Working Paper 3 at the SPC 9th Standing Committee on Tuna and Billfish. South Pacific Commission, New Caledonia. SPC/FFA? (1996) Reference on the high-level tuna consultation UNDP (1996a) Introduction to UNDP's Management Development and Governance Division. Internet Document. URL http://www.undp.org/undp/bpps/mdgd/intro.htm UNDP (1996b) Governance for sustainable human development. UNDP policy paper. Management Development and Governance Division, Bureau for Policy and Programme Support. UNDP. Appendix: Some regional political sub-groupings of Pacific Island states and territories Pacific Island EU-affiliated ("ACP") countries Fiji Kiribati Papua New Guinea Solomon Islands Tonga
Tuvalu Vanuatu Western Samoa Pacific Island EU-affiliated territories Nouvelle Caledonie (Fr) Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie & Oeno (UK) Polynésie Française (Fr) Wallis et Futuna (Fr) Pacific Island US-affiliated countries Federated States of Micronesia Marshall Islands Palau Pacific Island US territories American Samoa (US) Guam (US) Northern Marianas (US) Pacific Island NZ-affiliated countries Cook Islands Niue Pacific Island NZ territories Tokelau (NZ) Others (The following non-contiguous island territory EEZs are nominally within the geographical scope of SPC fisheries work but are not SPC members in their own right) Minami Tori Shima (JA) Bonin (JA) Midway (US) Howland (US) Baker (US) Wake (US) Palmyra (US) Norfolk (Au)
