Who gives a heck about tuna?
Maria Turaga
There are a number of things that I'm picking up as I start on this journey of learning about the environment.
One is that "sustainability" and "climate change" are the new buzz words.
The second is that a lot more corporate organisations are moving to environmentally-friendly ways of doing business as a way of bringing overhead costs down. The third is that tuna is a hot commodity.
I happened upon a discussion one day between some people who love tuna, and they were talking about how they could spread the gospel of tuna conservation to the general population of Fiji.
These were the members of the WWF-South Pacific's Offshore Fisheries Programme, a three-member team led by Seremaia Tuqiri, including Josua Turaganivalu and former radio personality Seini Tawakelevu.
Their discussions were based around finding a way to make the fight to preserve and sustainably manage our tuna stocks relevant to people like me who know nothing about it. And I'm typical of the attitude that people hold towards the fight to keep tuna numbers at sustainable level.
I kept saying: "But who gives a heck about tuna anyway?"
I didn't.
If there are no cans of tuna flakes in my pantry - I'll live. If there are no slices of tuna with dark flesh that my father brings home from the fish-shop near our place to be fried and served with bele or bhaji and soft tavioka (add lemon and chillies to that) - I'll live. And if I never ever come across bloodied heads of tuna lined up on sacks so brutally spread out on that traffic island near the Suva bus stand - I will definitely not be sad.
So why in the world would I want to write about tuna?
Well, there's just this small fact that I picked up from listening in on their discussion. According to a statement by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key, the Pacific Ocean accounts for 60 per cent of the global tuna catch. The global tuna catch is estimated to be worth around $US4.3billion ($F7.78bn). He says that in the Pacific $US400m ($F723.9m) is lost each year through Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUU fishing).
IUU fishing is another term that appears time and again in tuna discussions. A fact sheet released by WWF states that IUU fishing is "an organised criminal activity that is truly global". One story describes unlicenced vessels that illegally fish in waters of the Pacific using flags of convenience that would allow them to fish in an area that the country of the particular flag they are carrying has not signed an agreement to. And when they move into new territory - they just switch flags.
Then there's that story about tuna being the currency for the sex trade in a certain Pacific Island Country.
I initially thought that this was a joke until the very sombre Offshore Fisheries co-ordinator reassured me that he was serious.
This story was reinforced by a friend of mine who went there from Fiji for work.
"It's common knowledge" she told me - with a bit of a giggle. Apparently men working on the fishing vessels that are berthed at this particular island port, sometimes for weeks at a time, pay for the sexual services of the locals with tuna - and the locals gladly accept the tuna for food.
And what about the story of how in New Zealand Greenpeace placed a giant model can of tuna with a shark fin sticking out of it. They recreated the replica can complete with the logo of a tuna processing company made clearly visible. The shark fin sticking out of the can was to show the unsustainable fishing methods employed by fishing companies providing tuna to this cannery. This was featured in the local media and resulted in customers swearing off this company's products. Today, however, the company has still not committed to sustainably caught tuna; instead they have embarked on a public relations campaign that includes sponsoring swimming lessons.
The last frontier
By the way, seafood that is sustainably caught has a Marine Stewardship Council stamp on it (not available in Fiji), and the Offshore Fisheries Programme is working with major local fishing companies toward achieving this internationally-recognised status. To qualify for this stamp the company would have to meet certain criteria that would ensure, among other things, moving to the use of circle hooks, which can reduce the number of endangered sea turtles killed in longline fisheries by up to 90 per cent.
My favourite tuna story is that of the bluefin tuna. It sounds like a fisher who catches a bluefin tuna is set for life: I read online about a 342kg bluefin tuna caught being sold in Japan for $US396,000 ($F716,742) in January 2011. This price is almost $US150,000 ($F271,493) more than the price for a similar fish paid for the previous year. As stocks continue to decline this price is sure to rise further.
Seini Tawakelevu, who is an intern with the WWF program, said if I searched hard enough it would not be at all difficult to find some mafia-like stories in the tuna industry because of the amounts of money involved.
The good and bad thing about the Pacific today is that it is known as the last frontier for tuna, as stocks in other parts of the world are almost completely fished out. Although this is a good thing for the health of our ecosystem, if we are not very careful we will be supplying the world until our stocks go the same way.
At the recent Hibiscus Festival here in Suva, one of the posters at the WWF booth at Albert Park showed a man in Kiribati carrying a tuna that was almost two meters long. My reaction was the same as most people who had stopped by the booth: was that a real fish or was it a cut-out? I was reassured that the man was carrying a real fish. Tuna is a valuable commodity and I'm starting to find the issues surrounding it very interesting. Local artist Craig Marlow first played with the word "eternity" and designed a T-shirt that said: "eTUNAty". I never saw the art as this happened long before I paid attention to anything tuna-ish, but I sure would love to get a T-shirt to go with my new pet interest. Lastly, I am going to now pay a little more attention when I'm standing in the canned tuna section of my favourite supermarket just to keep an eye out for that treasure of a can with MSC certification that could mean tuna for an "eTUNAty".
MARIA TURAGA is an employee at WWF.
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