12th October 2016 A week-long workshop conducted at Tonga’s Fisheries headquarters aimed to develop a standard operative procedure to put into practice the Niue Treaty Subsidiary Agreement (NTSA) that Tonga ratified last year.
Participants from government line Ministries would develop their knowledge on the agreement to enhance cooperation between the Pacific Island countries in addressing illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activities.
Facilitator of the training Mr. Allan Rahari from the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency’s (FFA) said developing procedures would help Tonga manage the agreement which would benefit the country at a national and regional level.
“So the work this week is developing a standard operative procedure so that Tonga can operationalize or put into practice the actual agreement they’ve ratified. So by the end of the week we will have a procedure in place that Tonga Fisheries will consider and perhaps take it for further discussions with other line agencies and then go for the approval process,” he said.
“The benefit to Tonga is that it will help them implement the treaty not only at a national level but the bigger benefit will be to the region as it helps to address issues around illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing activity in the region.”
Acting CEO for Fisheries Compliance Division Ms. Losilini Loto’ahea stated that Tonga has benefit from the ratification of the NTSA and can now access assistance that we needed to address illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.
“We now can access to facilities needed to counter illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Tonga through ratifying the NTSA with the assistance of our neighboring countries such as sharing of data and in terms of emergency.”
“Through this system, we can requests for assistance from Australia or New Zealand regarding investigation on illegal fishing or further assistance on a matter which is beyond our control. It is also through this system, that we can be able to identify the available resources from each countries which can assist us if requested.”
The cooperation between the member countries was deepen through NTSA and it gives commitment to NTSA parties to share intel, data and national resources to combat illegal fishing in the region.
Tonga was the 7th member country to ratify NTSA including Cook Island, Nauru, Palau, Samoa, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
Similar training has been conducted in Samoa and Tuvalu funded by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) and FFA.
ENDS
Issued by the: Ministry of Meteorology, Energy, Information, Disaster Management, Climate Change and Communications