Pacifical People were already hooking tuna 42.000 Years Ago!

Recent discoveries have shown how important tuna is for the people of the Pacific. It is hard to imagine that 42.000 years ago, tuna was already caught with man-made fishing hooks. They made them out of bones; however it is not yet clear for what kind of species the hooks were used for.

Recent excavations on the island of Timor have found remains of tuna and other deep water species in a cave excavated in one of the pacific islands. This cave is to date the earliest evidence for ocean fishing!

How smart these people were to design tools that would catch deep seas species in order to provide their tribes with healthy protein… Let’s not forget people back then did not have boats to explore the seas, instead they used hooks made out of bones to catch several deep water species, such as tuna. Just imagine these people battling with a 100 kgs hooked yellowfin. The bones found revealed they did indeed catch some big fish.

42.000 years later, Pacifical is committed to conserve these same precious tuna stocks, which will hopefully remain as a major source of food and income for the Pacific Islanders for another 42.000 years. But let’s first concentrate on what we can do ourselves during our life time!

Why we think Sustainability and Social Standards should go…

One of the main objectives of Pacifical is to improve the social standards of our people who work on the boats, in the ports and within the processing plants.

In our view it is not possible to be ethical on caring about the environment – without applying the same ethical values to the people that work and deal with it on a daily basis. How can you give the highest care to dealing with fish and the environment, if you do not show the same responsible attitude to your people?

Also our customers have recognized the importance of good social working conditions, and have asked us if we can comply with either the globally recognized SA8000 or BSCI standards. You can find more information in their webpage.

For this reason, within our team we have our own SA8000 auditor who is currently in the PNA cooperating with our partner’s facilities to make sure they comply with the SA8000 international standardized code of conduct for improving working conditions and encouraging our partners in the PNA to make sustainable systemic changes where needed.

SA8000 contains eight core elements including; health and safety, working hours, child labor, forced labor, discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining, wages, and discipline. We at Pacifical want to make sure all these social standards are met and through that the workers morale keeps improving in a significant way.

Days of Truth for our MSC certification – November…

After overcoming a lot of obstacles in getting the dates fixed with the objectors from the Spanish tuna industry and the ISSF, we can finally say that the MSC adjudicator has fixed the dates of the objection hearing of the PNA Free School skipjack tuna to November 8th and 9th in London! Last month we told you we were in the last stage of the certification process, and we still are. The PNA team defending the objections to the certification now needs to travel half way around the world.

You may be wondering why it has been delayed if normally these kind of procedures take 30 days from the day the adjudicator invites all parties to the table, therefore, why in this case will the hearing take place almost 60 days later?

The answer is that it has been unquestionably very difficult, almost impossible to arrange a date for the hearing that was acceptable to the objectors OPAGAG, Eurothon and ISSF. Since none of the proposed dates matched the agenda of the objectors, the previous independent adjudicator Mr. Michael Lodge had no other option than to hand over his duties to a new adjudicator Mrs. Melanie Carter.

Lodge had to step out because his availability was limited to the end of October, and the parties had been taking too long to agree on a date and location, they did not seem to be in any hurry.

It is now a priority- for both the independent adjudicator and MSC- to ensure that the objection procedure of this very important tuna certification process will be completed within this year. Normally the adjudicator will give his final verdict to MSC within one month of the hearing, so that should be feasible.

Many people have asked us how we feel about the outcome. Well, we continue to be very confident of a positive judgment following this hearing. If around Dec 8th the adjudicator announces that the objections cannot be upheld, then the MSC certification of our FAD free skipjack fisheries will become a fact within this year.

PACIFICAL at the Pacific Tuna Forum on the EU…

On September 6th and 7th of 2011, the Pacific Tuna Forum took place in one of our most beautiful PNA nations: Palau. Around 200 delegates participated to discuss about the global tuna situation and its effect on the tuna industry within the WCPO (Western Central Pacific Ocean). With an annual tuna production of approximately 3.0 million tons, the WCPO is not only an important ocean to the Pacific people, but it is also crucial to the global tuna industry as it supplies close to 60% of tuna that consumers around the world eat daily!

A mind challenging presentation was given by our Pacifical managing director Mr. Henk Brus; it clearly shows how the EU tuna market has been evolving for the last 5 years, the private tuna brand situation vs. private label in Europe, the current trends driving EU consumers, the importance of sustainability in Europe and how powerful industry players in Spain are opposing the initiatives within the PNA.

Why EU canneries oppose the development in the pacific?

Tuna industry members from several parts of the world convene in Vigo to discuss a range of subjects. One of the major issues on the agenda will be the EPA of Papua New Guinea with the European Union. This EPA (Economic Partnership Agreement) will let PNG export canned tuna and also pre-cooked frozen tuna loins to the European Union at a zero duty tariff, whatever the origin of the tuna is. So any tuna purse seiner, which is not IUU and which is EU health approved, can deliver tuna to a PNG tuna processing plant for export to the European Union. PNG obtained this exceptional preference so the country can built its own processing industry, create much needed jobs, and economic spin-off. But ANFACO –the coalition of Spanish tuna canners– by all means wants to block this agreement and any expansion of the canning sector in PNG.

Last week, another tuna conference took place at the other side of the world. In Palau the Pacific Tuna Forum 2011 brought together the fishing and processing companies active within the waters of the Western Central Pacific Ocean, and also a small crowd from several other countries. But nobody from Spain, which is surprising given the fact that PNG has been inviting Spanish companies to invest in their country. After all, Spain has one of the world’s largest tuna fleets and also its industry is quite active in tuna processing around the world. Over the last 2 decades, new plants have been set up in Mauritius, Ecuador, Guatemala, El Salvador and Brazil. To attract Spanish and other EU industry investors, PNG even organized a special investment meeting earlier this year during the ESE, the PNA Summit. But so far, nothing has been heard about any commercial interest from Spain, when at the same time investors from Asian countries are flocking in.

The main argument of ANFACO to oppose the EPA with Papua is that it will kill valuable Spanish tuna manufacturing jobs. Jobs that are held by women and men in a country which is struggling with a 20 percent unemployment rate. Jobs that according to ANFACO soon will be taken over on the other side of the world by Papuas, who will pack canned tuna aimed at their Spanish market. The market with the worlds highest per capita consumption of canned tuna. This noble argument of wanting to save European jobs and to support struggling Spanish families is heard in Brussels and some politicians have started to doubt if the privileges given to Papua New Guinea should be continued.

The care for maintaining subsidized tuna processing jobs in Spain, however, has hardly been the main focus of ANFACO’s members over the last decade. With great ambition and success, Spanish canners have been building new processing plants in Latin America; state of the art facilities that were constructed with the purpose of obtaining valuable tuna fishing rights in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, and to have the landed tuna cleaned against considerable lower costs than in their homeland.; cleaned in countries with low wages, which have also duty free access to the EU market. This migration of jobs across the Atlantic was justified by the argument that without outsourcing the work of cleaning tuna to low wage countries, the domestic tuna processing industry would no longer be able to compete against the low cost competitor Thailand. Consequently, tens of thousands of jobs in Galicia have been lost and no effort has been made by ANFACO members to stop them from disappearing. Till this day, hardly any Thai canned tuna can be found in Spanish supermarkets.

As a result of these developments, ANFACO members have now moved an important part of their financial assets and investments towards tuna purse seiners and tuna plants in Latin America, far away from Spain. What has been left in Europe are highly automated canneries which pack tuna that was loined- pre-cooked and frozen overseas, and are marketed under the brands Calvo, Nostromo, Isabel, Ranxiera, Salica or under retailers’ private labels. Calvo is supplying pre-cooked loins from El Salvador and Brazil, Isabel from Ecuador and Colombia, Jealsa/Ranxiera from Guatamala , and Salica/ Albacora from Ecuador. Luckily for them, Latin American economies have recovered from their crisis and are showing healthy economic growth again, creating a rising demand for canned tuna by consumers there. This is generating promising new opportunities for these brands to venture through their new factories into these emerging Spanish speaking markets.

Considering all these successful strategic moves by Spanish tuna industrials, it is hard to understand why they are now becoming so worried about jobs of their higher paid workers at home. So far, Papua New Guinea has only 2 medium size canneries exporting to the European Union and these have mostly been running at half capacity for the last 5 years. Their share of total canned imports in the entire EU never exceeded 4%, hardly anything went to Spain. So if Papua is not a threat, and if it is not the jobs what Spain is worried about, then: what are these Spanish industry players really concerned about? The answer is: a lack of “origin tuna”.

In order for the 4 leading members of ANFACO to export canned tuna and tuna loins from their Latin American factories to Spain at zero duty, the GSP+ agreement requires that the tuna processed is caught by European vessels or tuna boats from the country of origin, which we call “rules of origin tuna” or “origin tuna”. With catches in the Eastern Pacific Ocean at their maximum, and with already 2 tuna fishing bans in the area each year, this region does not provide any possibilities for expansion of catches of “origin tuna”. Expansion, which is urgently needed to meet the growing appetite for canned skipjack tuna by the Latin American consumers, and to fuel the growth of the Spanish owned brands overseas. If these cans are going to be filled with “origin tuna” caught by -for example- Ecuadorian boats, not enough “origin tuna” will be available anymore for duty free import into Spain and other EU markets. If this supply would become tight, this could also drive Eastern Pacific tuna prices higher than in the Western Pacific.

This growing gap in the supply of raw material for South American markets, can be bridged in 2 ways. More “Non-origin” tuna has to come from the distant Western part of the Pacific Ocean, and this tuna should be exclusively used for the Latin consumers. This way all “origin tuna” from the EPO can continue to flow as mostly loins to the Spanish canneries. Without this supply, the Galician tuna industry could collapse and that indeed would wipe out the remaining jobs.

With the main interest being skipjack tuna, the rich waters of Papua New Guinea in the Western Pacific Ocean, are the most important source of this “non – origin tuna”. Here vessels from the USA, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, China and Philippines are catching skipjack which is badly needed for the growth of the canning industry in Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chili, and Colombia. In order for the Spanish-owned Latin canneries to secure the skipjack, at competitive prices, it is important that this raw material does not flow to canneries in Papua New Guinea. If the EPA would lead to any growth in the amount of canneries and jobs in Papua New Guinea, this would derail the highly ambitious plans of the ANFACO members in South America and Europe.

Therefore, it is of the greatest importance to the Spanish tuna sector to blast –during the coming 2 days- the message to European politicians and to the media that valuable Spanish jobs will be lost. Jobs that certainly should not be given to people of Papua New Guinea who own the strategic tuna resources, and in whose waters the fish is caught. ANFACO seems also worried that the Papua’s will be working under poor social conditions, and that factories might be using child labor. This is a popular and political sensitive subject when in one own’s country one fifth of the working population is jobless. Such “social concerns” were not heard when Spanish-owned loining and canning plants were established in Ecuador, one of the world’s poorest countries. Instead ANFACO proudly boasts that its members have created over 220.000 indirect jobs in Latin America. They failed to mention how many workers consequently got unemployed in Spain.

If the European Union was to stand by the continuation of the EPA with Papua New Guinea, and the favorable conditions that come with it, it is likely that ANFACO will demand compensation for its members. Compensation that could be sought in giving more Spanish owned super seiners access to the rich waters of Papua New Guinea or the PNA. That would enable these vessels to not only fish the entire high seas of the EPO, but also within in Western Central Pacific Ocean, creating the much desired expansion in the supply of “origin Tuna” for the Latin tuna canneries. Surely this will create more jobs in South and Central America, but not in Spain!

How Is The PNA Skipjack MSC Certification Going?

Let us share with you what has recently happened on our MSC certification process for free school skipjack fisheries.

After the load of objections received from the tuna industry organizations OPAGAG (Spain) – Eurothon (Europe) and ISSF (Global), we were happy to receive a series of positive submissions from the WCPFC (Western Central Pacific Tuna Commission), the Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), the esteemed Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) tuna scientist John Hampton, and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) itself. Correcting the mis-informations in the objections.

Despite most objections being countered with scientific evidence, and technical responses those trying to stop the certification were not convinced, theyrefused to discuss a settlement and have now insisted on a hearing by the adjudicator. ISSF funding the USD 5,000 fee on behalf of themselves and the EU industry. Such a hearing is basicall! y an arbitration led by the MSC Independent adjudicator Michael Lodge. After listening to all the parties involved and reviewing all pros and cons he will have to give the final verdict. The latest news is that this hearing will take place late October.

Within Pacifical, and also the PNA, we are confident of the positive outcome of this hearing, which should be known by mid November. If the verdict is that the objections cannot be upheld, then the MSC certification of our FAD free skipjack fisheries will become a fact.

We are also most grateful for all the positive feedback from the NGO community and are fortunate to report that neither WWF, Greenpeace Oceana PEW, FOS or EII have given any fundamental criticism against the MSC assessment procedure of the PNA free school skipjack. Rather, several have publically supported the FAD free / by-catch free initiative.

MSC certified PNA free school skipjack: When can we…

Many of you have been aproaching us with the question when you can finally buy MSC certified skipjack tuna? Unfortunately we do not have a precise final date for you yet! But we are confident it will definitely be within this year 2011!

Why is it taking so long?

Well first of all we had the assesment process for MSC, during which our skipjack fisheries and its management have gone through almost 18 months of intense scrutinyby the assessing team led by intertek Moody Marine.

This is possibly the biggest and most comprehensive assessment ever under MSC. July 12th the draft final assessment report was delivered by Moody to the MSC. On that day the MSC also invited all stakeholders to give their comments on that report, which is the normal MSC procedure. They gave them 15 working days to react.

As expected and announced in advance the Spanish (OPAGAG) and European Tuna industry ( Eurothon) along with the ISSF( a coalition of major global tuna brands and traders with a group of scientists and WWF ) each launched their objection notice, all at the same date : August 3rd.

When we read these objections on the MSC website we found that the comments by the European and Spanish industries were both 100% identical and the ISSF report mirrored all of their comments and added a few more.

Well, we at pacifical and the PNA were not really surprised, because ISSF had already boldly publicly said on April 27th: “The world will have to wait” for MSC approved free school caught skipjack from the PNA.

So they now are doing their utmost to ensure it is not going to happen anytime soon, by raising a heap of objections. ISSF submitted 27 pages of arguments! Kind of weird coming from a sustainable seafood alliance, backed commercially by the large global brands, and associated global fleets, especially when you consider that Greenpeace, WWF and other NGO’s did not submit any major comments, and these organizations fully support the PNA in its efforts.

MSC has given the PNA, Moody and other interested parties 20 working days to react to this pile of objections, so by September 6th they will need to have their answer ready. An independent adjudicator, has been appointed and after reading the submissions, will determine if indeed mistakes, procedural errors or irregularities in the assessment have taken place, and if they are serious enough to deny the certification or if additional research is needed.

We at Pacifical feel confident that the assessment is extremely solid, and that you will able to buy MSC certified free school skipjack tuna within this year!

May 2 – WORLD TUNA DAY

Next year may 2nd will be the first time that we can celebrate together World Tuna Day. So please get your agenda now and mark it !

A great opportunity to attract extra attention from your customers, members, colleagues and family members to this great fish which provides such delicious, healthy and nutritious food to so many people around the world. A fantastic fish that needs us to urgently start fishing and buying tuna in a sustainable way – so our kids and future generations can continue to enjoy it !

Last month the initiative for declaring World Tuna Day was taken by the ministers of the 8 Pacifical PNA island nations. They jointly committed to start celebrating each year on May 2nd in their countries and invite the world to join in bringing to the world’s attention this species which plays such a crucial role in our islands economies and our future. Tuna is for most PNA nations not only one of their most important sources of national income, employment and food security but it also plays a delicate role in the balance of the pristine and vulnerable ocean eco-system that surrounds our Pacific islands.

So let’s of all us who benefit from the magnificent wild tuna: tuna fishermen, processors, traders, retailers, tuna brands, distributors, NGO’s, governments, and consumers celebrate its existence on May 2nd. Pacifical will send you a reminder around that time!

A Minimum Price for a PNA Tuna Fishing Day

For too long the waters of the PNA have been fished for tuna by large fishing nations such as Japan, Taiwan, USA, Korea and more recently by Spain without our countries receiving proper financial compensation or participation.

If you consider that an average tuna purse seiner catches about 30,000 kg of tuna a day , worth maybe Usd 55,000, to the boat and more than double when processed, it only seems fair that they pay the people who own these resources a decent compensation or involve them in the industry.

Until recently fishing companies were only willing to pay Usd 1 – 2000 for one day of tuna fishing and PNA saw nothing else, with limiting the days fished to conserve all stocks for the future, the true value of tuna is being revealed and the PNA ministers thought it was time to raise the minimum price to Usd 5000 per fishing day from January 1st 2012. Of course PNA member countries are free to charge more, a few regionally based fleets even offer more currently, but not yet the bigger global players. Pacifical will continue the fight to sustain our fisheries, participate in it and bring you certified sustainable tuna.

Great Market Interest For Certified PNA Free school Skipjack…

The demand for FAD free caught skipjack and yellowfin tuna is growing every day. Through daily email requests from tuna brands, and retailers from many of the major canned tuna markets around the world we see that people are becoming aware of the advantages of buying sustainable caught and certified Free School Skipjack tuna. Most of them want to have it rather today than tomorrow.

Pacifical has already been meeting with many major tuna buyers in about 15 countries spread over 3 different market segments : retail, food service and food processing to explain our policy and to build close partnerships.

The reaction from the market has been incredibly positive and it is clear that many companies are ready to build close partnerships, and to start buying only skipjack tuna that is caught in a social responsible and environmentally sustainable way, and most importantly has full traceability from boat to throat , and carries the MSC logo of certification to prove that.

One of the conditions of Pacifical for engaging in a partnership to market our canned tuna is that we want each can to carry the Pacifical logo, this to clearly to promote the pristine area this tuna comes from, and to create a bond between the consumer and the people of the Pacific.

As it looks now the demand for MSC certified canned tuna far outstrips initial projected supply. So once we have the MSC logo, Pacifical will only start market introduction with an exclusive dedicated partner in each segment in each country.