I have been fishing and working in the WCPO since 1991, so I pre-date the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) that was established by the Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPF Convention) which entered into force on 19 June 2004.
remember us! we are the reason why you are at thses meetings!! no fisherman, no fishing!
Yet while I have been involved in issues around compliance, science and management for almost 20 years, I only recently got involved in the process of meetings that make up the working of the WCPFC… the intercessional working groups (IWG - I’m involved in 2: labour standards and transhipment), the Science Committee (SC) and the Technical and Compliance Committee (TCC)… however until now, never been to the “big meeting” the Regular Session of the Commission… here everything that has been chew and digested in the WG, that then was feed into SC and TCC, gets adopted, kicked for subsequent years or not pursued further.
As with all RFMOs, things are decided by consensus… even if, in the WCPFC case, there is a vote option.
In any case, I'm very much looking forward to being part of the big meeting that will take place in Rarotonga (Cook Islands), where I will be part of the RMI delegation.
Yet the meetings of the WCPFC are preceded by an annually well-lined-up series of preparatory meetings on specific topics by the regional organisations (FFA, SPC, PNA). In these meetings, the policies are formulated, advice is provided and discussed, scenarios evaluated and so on. All this takes place along culturally established sit-downs, negotiating agreements, face-to-face discussions, trust-based consensus building, and so on. Being the Pacific, all is well framed by sharing food, drinks, and stories.
During COVID, that well-oiled routine that had built up for many years disappeared. The travel ban took all that away, and all were based on virtual meetings; the simple fact is that we all needed to learn a new “way to do things” without much preparation and the very variable quality of the internet, which makes some of these meetings very frustrating.
To an extent, it is excellent to be in face-to-face meetings again, yet I also worry about the emissions geared up by all of us getting there.
One can argue that the WCPFC, the youngest of all the tuna RFMOs, is also the most successful, as all the key tuna stocks are in the green, as you can see in the 2022 overview and status of stocks.
Status of the stocks
Of course, it has the “weakness” of any RFMO, which is the slow process of consensus… but I would rather have it that way than the mess of not having an RFMO (look at the South Atlantic!)
There is a lot of unfair talk about the “secrecy” of the WCPFC…. I think it is quite the opposite… all the documents are available online, as you can see from the links above.
Only a couple of compliance reporting meetings are closed to observers (NGOs and multilateral organisations)… these are the sessions where countries present their compliance status. Things are discussed between countries… we have had bad experiences with NGOs running their agenda at the expense of the smallest members, so I understand the reluctance in this area.
There is a lot of pressure on the decision-making, and some NGOs use their online presence to represent their interest as opinion holders, which sometimes does not reflect the direct needs of the Pacific Islands, the real stakeholders in the fishery… I wrote last year on the issues of harvest strategies, which is piling up again this year under the banner of “keeping the stocks green” (in reference to the status of the stocks)… yet it is evident that the interest of those behind this campaign is “to maintain the blue” (the MSC logo)… and you all know I have a VERY dim view of the private certifications business and their neo-colonial ways.
In my case, I’m here as part of my work with RMI and focus on the discussions around the areas I work the most: Compliance, the abuse of the “impracticability” exemption on the Transhipment CMM and the fisher’s labour rights.
It says a lot to me that we have been going for almost 3 years with the Labour rights CMM (I had a bit of a rant on that recently)… yet on the other side, we are the only RFMO at least discussing it.
Furthermore, the WCPFC is run by colleagues and friends I greatly respect, particularly Lara and Rhea, who, besides being excellent professionals, have been very kind with their advice and trust towards my work.
So yeah, I am very much looking forward to the pre-meeting gathering and the meeting itself.