About the Project
The Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management project document was approved by the GEF Governing Council in May 2005 at the request of the Governments of the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tokelau, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.
The waters of the Pacific Islands region cover an area of around 40 million square kilometres, or over 10 per cent of the Earth’s surface and equivalent to about one third of the area of the Earth’s land surfaces. Most of this area falls within the national jurisdiction of the 15 Pacific small island developing States (SIDS) so that they are custodians of a significant part of the surface of the Earth and, in particular, custodians of a large part of one of the Earth’s major international waters ecosystems. These waters at the same time divide Pacific Island communities across huge distances and unite them by substantial dependence on a shared marine environment and shared marine resources. The waters hold the world’s largest stocks of tuna and related pelagic species. The waters of the Pacific Islands region provide around a third of the worlds’ catches of tuna and related species – and the broader Western and Central Pacific Ocean region, including Indonesia and Philippines, provides closer to half of the world’s tuna catches – around 2 million tonnes annually. The waters of the region also contain globally important stocks of sharks, billfish and other large pelagic species, whales and other marine mammals and turtles. The importance of the waters in geographical and environmental terms is enhanced by the significance of the management aspects of these waters.
Driven by the imperatives of their smallness in relation to the size of their marine jurisdictions and the economic importance of the marine resources to their welfare, the Pacific SIDS have developed a degree of cooperation and forms of working together which are globally important. In the late 1970’s Pacific SIDS established the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency Convention, committing themselves to cooperation in the management and development of fisheries in the areas within their newly extended jurisdictions. The regional initiatives were directed to science, compliance and development and have since come to form a unique body of collaboration in international fisheries management. Supported by this framework of cooperation, Pacific SIDS have shown considerable leadership in contributing to the development and application of global instruments for oceanic conservation and management. They led the process of opposition to large-scale driftnetting as it developed in the late 1980s, threatening a high level of destruction of seabirds, marine mammals and juvenile oceanic pelagic fish in areas of high seas beyond national control culminating in UN resolutions calling for a moratorium on large-scale driftnet fishing. They played a full role in the negotiation of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, providing 7 of the 30 ratifications, which brought the Agreement into force in 2001. They led the development of the WCPF Convention which is the first major regional application of the provisions of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, providing 10 of the 12 ratifications (with Australia and New Zealand) which brought the Convention into force on 19 June 2004.
This project is driven by the concern of Pacific SIDS about unsustainable use of the transboundary oceanic fish stocks of the Pacific Islands region and unsustainable levels and patterns of exploitation in the fisheries that target those stocks. The origins of the Project, its preparation, its objectives and its structure all address those concerns. These are transboundary concerns that apply especially to the impacts of unregulated fishing in the areas of high seas in the region, but also apply more generally across all waters of the region. At the centre of these concerns is the transboundary nature of the stocks. The stocks are dominantly highly migratory, with their range extending through waters under the jurisdiction of around 20 countries and into large areas of high seas. Each of the countries within whose waters the stocks occur has responsibilities under international law to adopt measures for the conservation and management of these stocks. But without a coherent and legally binding framework to establish and apply measures throughout the range of the stocks, including the high seas, the efforts made by individual countries in their own waters can be undermined by unregulated fishing on the high seas and by inconsistencies in measures in different national zones.
Project Documents
This page contains the approved Project Document for the Oceanic Fisheries Management (OFM) Project funded through the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented through the United Nations Development Programme. The Project was approved by the GEF Governing Council and the GEF CEO in May 2005. The execution of the project is by the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and co-executed by the Oceanic Fisheries Programme of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN). The OFM Project Document comprises the full project document, a set of compulsory annexes, optional annexes which includes the Convention for the Conservation and Management of Highly Migratory Fish Stocks in the Western and Central Pacific and an separate executive summary.
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| OFM_project-document_01.pdf | 1.51 MB |
| OFM_project-document_02_complusory_annexes.pdf | 320.11 KB |
| OFM_project-document_03_optional_annexes.pdf | 320.11 KB |
| OFM_project-document_04_executive_summary.pdf | 2.03 MB |
National Needs Assessments
NATIONAL REPORTS
This directory presents the reports of national missions undertaken to the countries participating in the preparation of the GEF SAP II Project for Oceanic Fisheries Management. The countries are:
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The purposes of the national missions were:
- To make assessments of the implications of the WCPF Convention for each Pacific Island Country
- To identify possible activities to support implementation by each Pacific Island Country of the WCPF Convention
- To make an analysis of the incremental costs to each Pacific Island Country of activities related to the Convention
- To undertake an analysis of stakeholders in each Pacific Island Country with interests in the regional oceanic fisheries resources
- To identify relevant consultative mechanisms in each Pacific Island Country for the GEF SAP II Project; and
- To collect information relating to available indicators of performance in areas related to the WCPF Convention and to the financial sustainability of each Pacific Island Country’s participation in the Commission and implementation of the WCPF Convention
The reports were prepared by teams of consultants visiting countries in June to July 2004. The missions were assisted by in-country Technical Assistants. The missions were organized and coordinated by FFA, with support from SPC, SPREP and UNDP. The missions were a major undertaking. They included a range of consultative meetings and workshops involving around 500 people in 14 countries . The participants were drawn from a wide range of stakeholders including:
- academic and other training institutions
- government agencies in the areas of commerce, economic development, environment, fisheries, foreign affairs, law, and trade, and donor agencies, both bilateral and multilateral;
- media representatives
- non-governmental organizations, especially those with an interest in environmental and social issues
- politicians; and
- private sector participants from businesses involved in oceanic fisheries, finance, processing and other sectors, including small, medium and large scale operators as well as members of the public.
There was widespread media coverage of the work of the missions throughout the region in print, radio, television and the Internet. This coverage was enhanced because of media interest in entry into force of the WCPF Convention, which came into force on 19 June. The missions were generally highly successful in achieving the purposes set out above. Most of the information needed was gathered. Participation in the consultative process of the missions was broad and positive, providing insights in to a range of issues related to the GEF SAP II Project and the WCPF Convention, and to wider issues related to oceanic fisheries. The missions documented substantial efforts being made by Pacific Island Countries to strengthen the management of their oceanic fisheries following the conclusion of the WCPF Convention. These efforts provide a basis for collaboration with the GEF, the regional organisations and other donors to support this strengthening process. But the missions also documented the constraints in institutions and human resources in oceanic fisheries management, and the need to reform and strengthen relevant laws, institutions, policies and programmes in many countries. A particular need identified was to improve understanding of the implications of the WCPF Convention throughout the region. A feature of the missions was the level and quality of participation by the private sector in the work of the missions, highlighting the need for improved consultative processes between governments and non-government stakeholders, especially private sector interests, at both national and regional levels.
Project Summary
Project Summary
Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have special conditions and needs that were identified for international attention in the Barbados Programme of Action for the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and in the World Summit for Sustainable Development’s Johannesburg Plan of Implementation. Throughout these instruments, the importance of coastal and marine resources and the coastal and marine environment to sustainable development of SIDS is emphasised, with the Plan of Implementation specifically calling for support for the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Convention (the WCPF Convention).
The GEF identifies sustainable management of regional fish stocks as one of the major environmental issues SIDS have in common, and as a target for activities under the SIDS component of OP 9, the Integrated Land and Water Multiple Focal Area Operational Program. In addition, the GEF promotes the adoption of an ecosystem-based approach to addressing environmental problems in Large Marine Ecosystems through activities under the Large Marine Ecosystem Component of OP 8, the Waterbody-Based Operational Program. Consistent with this framework, GEF financing for the South Pacific International Waters SAP Project from 2000 to support the implementation of an IW Pacific Islands SAP included a pilot phase of support for the Oceanic Fisheries Management Component, which underpinned successful efforts to conclude and bring into force the WCPF Convention.
Now, GEF assistance supports a new Pacific Islands OFM Project to support Pacific SIDS efforts as they participate in the setting up and initial period of operation of the new Commission that is at the centre of the WCPF Convention, and as they reform, realign, restructure and strengthen their national fisheries laws, policies, institutions and programmes to take up the new opportunities which the WCPF Convention creates and discharge the new responsibilities which the Convention requires.
The goals of the Project combine the interests of the global community in the conservation of a marine ecosystem covering a huge area of the surface of the globe, with the interests of some of the world’s smallest nations in the responsible and sustainable management of resources that are crucial for their sustainable development.
The global environmental goal of the Project is
to achieve global environmental benefits by enhanced conservation and management of transboundary oceanic fishery resources in the Pacific Islands region and the protection of the biodiversity of the Western Tropical Pacific Warm Pool Large Marine Ecosystem.
The broad development goal of the Project is
to assist the Pacific Island States to improve the contribution to their sustainable development from improved management of transboundary oceanic fishery resources, and from the conservation of oceanic marine biodiversity generally.
The IW Pacific Islands SAP identified the ultimate root cause underlying the concerns about, and threats to, International Waters in the region as deficiencies in management, and grouped the deficiencies into two linked subsets – lack of understanding, and weaknesses in governance.
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| OFM_project_pamphlet_2006.pdf | 409.01 KB |
Project Objectives
The immediate objectives of the Project address the two root causes of the threats to the sustainability of use of the region’s oceanic fish resources identified in the SAP:
The Information and Knowledge Objective
to improve understanding of the transboundary oceanic fish resources and related features of the Western and Central Pacific Warm Pool Large Marine Ecosystem
The Governance Objective
to create new regional institutional arrangements, and reform, realign and strengthen national arrangements for conservation and management of transboundary oceanic fishery resources.
The structure of the Project is designed to address these two objectives through two major technical components. A third component will provide services necessary for effective implementation as follows.
Project Component Descriptions
Component 1, the Scientific Assessment and Monitoring Enhancement Component, is aimed at providing improved scientific information and knowledge on the oceanic transboundary fish stocks and related ecosystem aspects of the Western Tropical Pacific Warm Pool LME, and at strengthening the national capacities of Pacific SIDS in these areas. This work will include a particular focus on the ecology of seamounts in relation to pelagic fisheries, and the fishing impacts upon them.
Component 2, the Law, Policy And Institutional Reform, Realignment & Strengthening Component, is aimed at assisting Pacific Island States as they participate in the earliest stages of the work of the new WCPF Commission, and at the same time reform, realign and strengthen their national laws, policies, institutions and programmes relating to management of transboundary oceanic fisheries and protection of marine biodiversity.
Component 3, the Coordination, Participation and Information Services Component, is aimed at effective project management, complemented by mechanisms to increase participation and raise awareness of the conservation and management of oceanic resources and the oceanic environment. The design of the Project has involved a substantial consultative process, which has been warmly supported throughout the region. Reflecting outcomes of this process, the Project seeks to apply a regional approach in a way that recognises national needs; to strike a balance between technical and capacity-building outputs by twinning technical and capacity building activities in every area; and to open participation in all project activities to governmental and non-governmental stakeholders. The structure for implementation and execution of the Project builds on a record of successful collaboration between UNDP, regional organisations and Pacific SIDS in past activities in oceanic environmental management and conservation, strengthened by planned new partnerships with IUCN, a regional environmental NGO and a regional industry NGO.
Profiles
Professionals Profiles
Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project
Short biographies are provided for the following professionals associated with the PI Oceanic Fisheries Management Project:
PROJECT COORDINATION UNIT & PACIFIC ISLANDS FORUM FISHERIES AGENCY (FFA), Honiara, Solomon Islands
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CAMERON, Darren – Fisheries Management Adviser
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GHOLOMO, Royden - Project Finance and Administration Officer
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HANCHARD, N. Barbara - Project Coordinator
PACIFIC COMMUNITY (SPC), OCEANIC FISHERIES PROGRAMME, Noumea, New Caledonia
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ALLAIN, Valerie - Fishery Scientist, Ecosystem Analysis
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BROGAN, Deirdre - Fishery Monitoring Supervisor
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BROMHEAD, Dr. Don - Fishery Scientist, Stock Assessment
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LEROY, Bruno - Fishery Scientist, Ecosystem Monitoring
The World Conservation Union (IUCN).
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HURD, Andrew - Senior Programme Officer, Global Marine Programme
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RODGERS, Dr. Alex - Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London
Biographies:
CAMERON, Darren
Darren Cameron has commenced his appointment as a Fisheries Management Adviser at FFA. He started his fisheries career as a Fisheries Scientist with the Queensland Government in Australia and was as a Fisheries Manager with the Queensland Fisheries Management Authority. In 1999 he took up a management and liaison position with the Fisheries Issues Group at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority based in Townsville. Over the last seven years Darren’s main responsibilities have been to introduce effective on-the-ground ecosystem approaches to fisheries management in the Great Barrier Reef. He was required to consult with a range of fisheries stakeholders to acquire and coordinate the incorporation of fisheries information into management of the Great Barrier Reef. In commencing his new position at FFA, Darren completes a full circle again working on oceanic pelagic fisheries after having been the logbook coordinator and observer with the then fledgling Queensland East Coast Tuna Long- Line Fishery in the late 1980's. Darren is a keen recreational fisher and his wife and young son will be moving to Honiara after the birth of their second child in August.
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GHOLOMO, Royden |
HANCHARD, N. Barbara |
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Royden Gholomo & Barbara Hanchard |
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Royden Samuel Gholomo was appointed as the Project Finance and Administration Officer for the Oceanic Fisheries Management Project (GEF/UNDP) February 6th 2006. Prior to joining the FFA, he worked as a Project Accountant for an AusAid funded Project executed by ADRA Solomon Islands, a Community Strengthening and Reconciliation Program (CSRP). In 2003 he was employed by UNDP as an Assistant Finance Officer in Honiara Sub Office. He is currently undertaking further accounting and financial study at USP, Honiara. |
Barbara Hanchard was appointed as the Project Coordinator for the UNDP/GEF Pacific Oceanic Fisheries Management Project in December 2005. The project is executed by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) based in Honiara, Solomon Islands. Prior to this she joined the FFA, a regional fisheries organisation established to assist Pacific Islands States manage their fisheries resources, as the Executive Officer in 1995. After graduating from the University of Auckland in 1991, she returned to the Cook Islands to work as a fisheries policy advisor for the Ministry of Marine resources before leaving to join FFA. She holds a Bachelors of Arts from the University of Auckland and will shortly complete a master's degree in business administration (oceans resource management) from the Australian Maritime College. |
ALLAIN, Valerie
Valerie was born in France and obtained her PhD in Biological Oceanology at the European Institute of Marine Studies in France in 1999. She studied the ecology, biology and the fishery of deep-sea fish populations from the North Eastern Atlantic before coming into the Pacific region in 2000. She then started work at SPC in the Tuna Ecology and Biology section of the Oceanic Fisheries Programme. Valerie was involved in the first GEF project 2000-2005 Strategic Action Plan for the International Waters of the Pacific Small Island Developing States. She was in charge of implementing the ecosystem analysis study which focused on the trophic structure of the pelagic ecosystem. This involved organising a large sampling programme for fish diet studies and the analysis of these data. In the new GEF project 2005-2010 Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project, Valerie will continue to analyse the trophic structure of the pelagic ecosystem with a new focus on the interactions between seamount and pelagic fisheries.
BROGAN, Deirdre
Deirdre is Irish, and her entry into the marine world started with a National Diploma in Aquaculture. She used the skills she gained from her academic training to manage the broodstock, spawning and the on-growing of several shellfish species in the wind swept coastal waters of the West of Ireland. Enjoying the work she returned to complete her B.Sc in Applied Aquatic Sciences which she obtained in 1993.
While fully intending to return to aquaculture, fate sent her out to sea to observe on the national pelagic and demersal fishing fleets. These trips were interspersed with specific projects looking at marine mammal interactions. In February 1995, funded by the European Union, she took up employment with the Oceanic Fisheries Programme, SPC in the SPRTRAMP-EU project as an at-sea observer, spending five years covering the multiple tuna fleets that fish in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Subsequently in 2000, funded by GEF, the focus of her work moved towards improving the quality of sampling data received from the growing Pacific Island sampling programmes. She is the author of the observer newsletter ‘ForkLength’ as well as the ‘Port Sampling Manual’. In the new GEF project her work will focus on supporting countries to enhance their overall approach to tuna data collection. This work should leave countries well placed to comfortably meet their data obligations to the Western and Central Pacific Fishing Commission (WCPFC).
BROMHEAD, Dr. Don
Don was born in Canberra, Australia and successfully completed his PhD (on condition and growth in fish) at the Australian National University in 2001. Before joining the Oceanic Fisheries Programme at the SPC in February 2006, he worked at the Bureau of Rural Sciences (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) in Canberra where he was involved in a range of fisheries research, including annual reports on the status of Australia’s domestic fisheries. Other primary areas of research have included work on the biology and fisheries for striped marlin, analyses of the catch and economics of byproduct species taken in longline fisheries, analyses of factors influencing seabird bycatch rates, and the analyses of interactions between domestic fisheries. Recruited specifically to work under the new GEF project 2005-2010 Pacific Islands Oceanic Fisheries Management Project, Don will be part of a team of scientists working to help build the capacity of Pacific Island Countries and Territories to analyze and interpret fisheries data and assessments. This will be achieved via the development and implementation of annual stock assessment workshops, the production of national tuna fishery status reports (in collaboration with participating Pacific Island Countries and Territories), and the hosting of attachments of national fishery personnel to the OFP.
LEROY, Bruno
Bruno was born in France in 1963. After a BSc in 1986 at the University of Rennes (France), Bruno has been successively a biologist in a sub-Antarctic island and a lobster fisherman in the North coast of Brittany, France.
From 1992 to mid 1996 he worked for IFREMER (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea) in many roles, his experience included at sea-observing, catch sampling, fishery activities surveys, cetacean sighting surveys and fish growth studies.
Bruno joined the Oceanic Fisheries Programme of SPC in June 1996 with the SPRTRAMP-EU project. During this project and its successor, the PROCFISH-EU project, Bruno established a research laboratory devoted to fish ageing studies and completed tuna and by-catch growth studies by reading otoliths. He trained students to lab techniques and observers at sea. He also started to tag tunas and this last role has expanded with the development of the tagging with electronic devices.
With the GEF/OFM project, Bruno will be more involved in coordinating field and laboratory research to provide the data needed to enhance our knowledge of the pelagic ecosystem. Bruno will also be in charge of organising a large scale tuna tagging project.
Bruno is married and has three children.
HURD, Andrew
Andrew Hurd is Senior Programme Officer, Global Marine Programme, for the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Based at IUCN Global Headquarters in Gland, Switzerland, Andrew oversees the development and implementation of a wide range of marine conservation initiatives around the world. Andrew holds a Masters degree from the George Washington University, Washington DC, and worked for the World Bank and other international agencies on environment and natural resource management projects across many regions, before joining IUCN in 2003. Andrew is coordinating IUCN's involvement in the Pacific Islands OFM project.
RODGERS, Dr. Alex
Dr Alex Rogers is Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, and provides scientific advice to IUCN – The World Conservation Union on seamounts and deep sea habitats. Dr. Rogers is the Principal Investigator for the seamount research cruises to be carried out under the auspices of the Pacific Islands OFM project.
Dr. Rogers studied for his first degree in Marine Biology at the University of Liverpool and completed a Ph.D. in the taxonomy and genetics of marine worms in 1992. He then moved to the Marine Biological Association (MBA) of the UK in Plymouth to undertake a fellowship in the systematics and population genetics of marine animals. It was while he was at the MBA that Alex became interested in deep-sea biology and undertook his first work on the genetics of deep-sea animals.
In 1997 Dr. Rogers moved to the University of Southampton on an advanced fellowship to continue his studies on the genetics and ecology of deep-sea animals, in particular cold-water coral reefs. During this period he acted as an expert witness in a judicial review on the application of the EU Habitats Directive to deep-sea ecosystems, especially those associated with the coral Lophelia pertusa and he demonstrated that these corals are, like their shallow-water relatives, reef-forming.
Dr. Rogers has published over 40 papers on marine ecology, population genetics and phylogenetics, including a book on the marine animals and plants of Britain.