The Government has committed nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced the funding, saying the support would assist New Zealand’s Pacific partners to further develop and maintain the healthy and productive fisheries that are at the core of the region’s prosperity and sustainability.
“It also addresses some recommendations from New Zealand Parliament’s inquiry into illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing by supporting better capacity and capability for monitoring and combatting illegal fishing,” said Minister Peters.
Mr Jones announced the package at a regional ministerial fisheries meeting in Honiara, saying the support is important for Pacific nations’ resilience and sustainability.
“Fisheries are vital to the Pacific, the main source of revenue by far for some countries, and New Zealand has long supported their success. We have a long-standing commitment to the region, and this funding package addresses critical next steps for our Pacific partners,” the Minister said.
“New Zealand is promoting increased regional co-operation to counter changing patterns attributed to climate change, which will force a large proportion of tuna stocks out of the exclusive economic zones of some Pacific countries that rely on the catch for revenue.
“Region-wide responses are increasingly important to sustain and improve the benefits of Pacific tuna,” he said.
Mr Peters says New Zealand was proud to continue its long-standing collaboration with all four of the implementing partners: the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission and New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).
The Sustainable Pacific Fisheries portfolio package includes:
- Support for country capacity and capability ($19.48m);
- Support for regional capacity and co-ordination ($16.49m);
- A new phase of MPI-led fisheries training programme, Te Pātuitanga Ahumoana a Kiwa ($7.15m);
- Supporting data monitoring through the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission ($4.63m); and
- Programme support ($948k).
Mr Jones (pictured, below) is in the Solomon Islands this week attending the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee Ministerial and Regional Fisheries Ministerial (main photo).
