LEADERS DECISION ON FISHERIES AND THE FISHERIES TASK FORCE WORK PROGRAMME 10th SPC Head of Fisheries Meeting Noumea, New Caledonia 14 to 17 March 2017 Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat Suva Fiji Islands

Leaders Mandate on Fisheries In 2015 the fisheries sector was identified as a regional priority under the Framework for Pacific Regionalism (FPR) and subsequently leaders endorsed a Regional Roadmap for Sustainable Fisheries. In 2016 in their meeting in Phonpei FSM Leaders; Endorsed; The Fisheries Taskforce Taskforce’s Economic Returns Work Programme and Report, and noted that the four areas of work under the Programme: reform of the management of longline fishery; increasing the value of employment and ensuring effective labour standards are in place; facilitating investment and trade; and value chain participation, are consistent with, and expedite implementation of, several of the Goals and Strategies in the Fisheries Roadmap. Agreed; To expand the broad heading of “fisheries” to include coastal fisheries, noting links to communities, food security, health issues and in particular non-communicable diseases. Leaders also noted the need to ensure eco-system integrity to address issues such as ciguatera outbreaks and to sustainably manage Beche-de-Mer. To that end, Leaders tasked the SPC to coordinate with National Fisheries Agencies, CROP agencies and regional and national community groups, to strengthen support and resourcing for coastal fisheries management. 2015 Leaders endorsed fisheries as one of the priority for maximizing economic and social benefit to the people of the region from tuna fisheries. The maximization of benefits does not in anyway conotes the sense of “boom and bust scenarios” but what the Leaders are referring to is the effective utilization of marine resource at a level where economic benefits are maximized at a sustainable level or in bio-economic terms, at the Maximum Economic Yield level.

Fisheries Task Force Work Programme Key Activity Responsible Agency Component 1: Reform of the management of the long line fisheries. Regional advice and coordination; support for sub-regional management under the Tokelau Arrangement Sub-regional management under the PNA LL VDS Scientific advice and technical support for fishery monitoring and data monitoring and management. FFA PNA SPC Component 2: Increase the value of employment and ensuring effective labour standards are in place Regional advice, development of standards, training Fisheries observer programme training support, certification and standards, and capacity building in fisheries science, data acquisition and data management Members of the Leaders Task Force includes; FFA, PNAO, SPC and PIFS as the Chair.

FTF work programme Work Programme Key Activity Responsible Agency Component 3: Facilitating investment and trade. Coordinated support and advice for improving the business environment and enabling private sector investment at national level FFA/PIFS Trade policy and agreements that contribute to improving access to existing markets and facilitating access to new markets PIFS Securing/maintaining market access to key markets (notably EU) by supporting national compliance with certification requirements (SPS and IUU). FFA Provision of fisheries resource information. SPC Component 4: Value Chain participation Advice and coordination for extending Pacific Islands’ management control. FFA/PNAO Implementation under PNA sub-regional management arrangements. PNAO Support for branding, certification and eco-labelling. FFA/PNAO/PIFS Technical support. For Component 3 and 4 PIFS will engaged PT&I Offices that are based in Sydney in Australia, Auckland in New Zealand, Beijing in China, Tokyo in Japan and Geneva to assist in the marketing, investment and support towards branded fisheries products from FICs. The PT&I has been very effective in promotion of Agricultural products from FICs and have assisted greatly in promotion of Tourism in FICs. In terms of Labour mobility they have linked some FICs with the Tourism Sector in countries like Australia in the sourcing of their employees , similar to the RSE Scheme.

Pacific Trade and Investment Network (PT&I) https://pacifictradeinvest.com Success Stories: Investment Tourism Export Creative Arts LNG Levasa Resort, Sur Solomons Workers from Kiribati to Australia – hospitality sector, Kingdon Fresh, Vanui Vanilla, Kiricraft, Lau lava Compnay, Island Beekeeing Forence Kamel, Among Equals, Oivie Artist We now need to engage them with fisheries investment, trade and marketing.

Thank you ribanataakea@forumsec.org