Uppdate: South Pacific Tuna Corporation slashes fleet over half

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Citing lack of federal government support, as well as its anti-industry regulations, South Pacific Tuna Corporation (SPTC) will be selling more than half of its US flagged purse seiner fleet to foreigner operators.

The San Diego-based management company announced Tuesday plans for its 14-vessel fleet, which will be slashed down to 6 vessels  by the end of the year.

“Our fleet reduction is due in part to the U.S. government’s continued lack of support and the lack of interest in ratifying the 1988 South Pacific Tuna Treaty, renegotiated in 2016,” SPTC executive director J. Douglas Hines said in a statement, announcing the changes.

“Despite our efforts to work with the Trump Administration, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has not reciprocated and continues its overly aggressive compliance and enforcement actions,” said Hines.

According to the SPTC website <www.sopactuna.com&gt;, its vessels fish in the Western Pacific ocean and supply tuna to many of the industry’s recognizable seafood brands, including StarKist, Bumble Bee Foods, and Chicken of the Sea.

Local and off-island industry officials told Samoa News that SPTC’s announcement — which also relieves from duty 12 of its US captains and crew and reduces the number of management and staff members — shows the continued impact of federal regulations and policies on the US purse seiner fleet.

Additionally, the US fleet is moving away from US waters due to these same policies impacting places like American Samoa — whose economy is dependent on the cannery and fishing industry.

“With stringent federal regulations, US vessels are looking elsewhere to fish and provide to other foreign countries with less labor costs, instead of American Samoa, which must comply with US regulations,” said one off-island industry official, who pointed to Samoa News stories in recent weeks regarding cannery and ASG officials voicing concerns on these same issues.

“So it’s out there, in the public forum, with the federal government, and there’s still no firm solid action for the US fleet and American Samoa.”

Samoa News notes that both ASG and cannery officials, with support from the US purse seiner fleet, have long argued that federal policies are impacting the cannery and US vessels fishing in the Western Pacific region.

For SPTC, based on a news release, the sale of its vessels represents a reduction of 70,000 tons of US-produced tuna, which will increase the U.S. seafood trade deficit by $80 million to $100 million.

SPTC said it will continue to supply sustainably harvested tuna to its current customers with its remaining operations.

ASG and others have publicly argued that the US fleet competing with foreign vessels funded by their government — for example, Chinese vessels, which operate in the Western Pacific region — don’t have to comply with stringent federal laws.

These arguments are echoed by SPTC, which said that the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) compliance authorities “have made it virtually impossible for the U.S. distant water tuna fleet to compete against the fleets from China, Korea, and Taiwan.”

Unlike foreign competitors who are strongly supported by their governments, the U.S. fleet faces policies by its own government that are non-supportive and essentially anti-industry and anti-trade, said SPTC.

With the withdrawal of the U.S. fleet from the Western Pacific, SPTC argues that US influence in those waters will continue to decline as China, Korea, and Russia take a larger role in the region.

“In the global priorities of the U.S. Government, the Western Pacific has become an afterthought,” said Hines, adding that US President Ronald Reagan recognized in 1988, that the South Pacific Tuna Treaty is “a critical step to ensuring American vessels and commerce continue to lead in the region and the world”

“The reduction of the U.S. fleet will be a devastating blow for the international policy community as well as the Western Pacific sustainable fishery ecosystem,” he said.

The tuna treaty is between the US and 16 Pacific island countries, and the document, allows for U.S. purse seine vessels to fish in the exclusive economic zones of the Pacific island countries party to the treaty.

According to the NOAA Fisheries website, it was in December 2016 that the parties involved in the treaty agreed to a revised and updated treaty that modernized the way that U.S. fishing vessels secure access to the productive tuna fishing waters of the treaty nations.

As previously reported by Samoa News, on Dec. 3, 2016 in Nadi, Fiji, the tuna treaty was signed and is valid through 2022. However, ASG had noted with concern that the new treaty provides higher access fees and limited fishing days, and this translates directly to higher costs for buyers, such as the manufacturers in American Samoa.

And higher costs make it difficult for local manufacturers to compete with other low cost countries.