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Fishing Industry Association of Papua New Guinea’s Tuna Purse Seine Fishery – the largest global source of Marine Stewardship Council-certified tuna
The Fishing Industry Association of Papua New Guinea (FIA PNG) is delighted to share that we have undergone a strict, exhaustive and robust scope assessment by SCS Global Services to our geographical scope expansion into the waters of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) and the Western Central Pacific Fisheries Commission high seas, collectively becoming the largest tuna supply source with around 750,000 MT of raw material including yellowfin tuna, skipjack tuna and bigeye tuna under the FIA PNG Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) tuna fishery certification. The waters of the PNA member countries, consisting of Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Solomon Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu, are the most productive waters supplying more than 50% of the global tuna raw material. The President & Chairman of FIA PNG Sylvester Pokajam stated that, “Our current tuna fleet of 48 tuna purse seiners is fishing inside the PNG Exclusive Economic Zone and Archipelagic Waters. We are having good catches, however we applied for the geographical scope extension only because we do not know how climate change will influence the tuna stocks’ behaviour and migration patterns. “We safely guarantee to our stakeholders, clients and retailer partners that we will maintain the same rigour with the 100% observer onboard coverage, iFIMS real-time data collection, Global Fishing Watch
(GFW) accessing our Vessel Monitoring System, Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability Key Data Elements’ data collection & share, and most importantly, the FIA PNG accountability and management control system under our Responsible Sourcing Policy (RSP).” Another milestone that FIA PNG achieved over the past 12 months was the independent and third-party recognition under the FISH Standard for Crew certification scheme for its fisher-workers. FISH stands for: Fairness , Integrity , Safety and Health . It was developed internationally to assure seafood buyers that the fish they are buying and selling is harvested by crews that are: 1. Recruited and hired ethically, 2. Treated with respect on the vessel, 3. Paid properly, 4. Have in place a grievances mechanism, etc. This is the result of a long due-diligence process that started in 2018 with the development of the FIA RSP commitment. Later in 2019, Seafoodmatter carried out the first assessment onboard of Crew Welfare and Social Responsibility (Seafoodmatter labour benchmark tool) in Frabelle fishing purse seiner and carrier. The FIA PNG has developed its Social Accountability and Crew Welfare procedure with a holistic approach to preparing its fleet, crew awareness, and crew conditions onboard for this recognition. It has been a journey of almost four years, and it was not easy.
“FIA PNG is glad and proud to see that our members cooperated with our office to have improved services. “Our local PNG national crews and Filipino crews are now getting the benefits of awareness, decent working and living conditions onboard where their welfare and safety needs are being met. Even though some issues of performance of recruitment agencies needs to be reviewed, it is a work in progress,” said Mr Pokajam. “This is a result of great teamwork by our tuna fishing fleet members and tuna processors, the FIA PNG office team and the National Fisheries Authority in continuously providing sufficient verifiable evidence to show how we are managing our fishery in a responsible and transparent manner. “To our retailers and global tuna markets, we can assure a stable and sustainable tuna supply while ensuring that our fisheries and marine resources remain sustainable for future generations to come.”
Sylvester Pokajam President & Chairman Fishing Industry Association
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