Pacific tuna fishery on track to return US$1 billion

The Pacific Community says tuna fisheries are on track to return US$1 billion to the region in a year.

The community's director general, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, said the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, or PNA, and the Forum Fisheries Agency are increasing returns to their member states.

The PNA controls the world's largest, sustainable tuna purse seine fishery which is valued at US$6 billion annually.

Dr Tukuitonga says it returned $US60 million to the region in 2010 which increased to US$500 million in 2017.

“And my colleagues at PNA tell me they're on track for a billion return in [the] not too distant future which of course is good news for everyone in the sense that the Pacific are rightly getting some of the returns from the tuna back,” he said

 

Photo file. Caption: Tuna fishing in the Pacific