8 Pacific Island Nations Proceed W. Plan Closing 4.5 KM2 Of Ocean To Tuna Fishing - AFP

[hatrack]

A group of eight Pacific island countries agreed Friday to push ahead with plans to close off 4.5 million square kilometres of high seas areas to fishing to save rapidly depleting tuna stocks.

Officials from the group known as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) -- which controls areas responsible for a quarter of the world's tuna supply -- agreed to extend the ban to new areas on the high seas. They plan to do this by requiring that fishing companies which want to fish in their economic zones have to agree to stop fishing in the targeted high seas areas.

They will take the proposal to the annual meeting in December of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, a body which groups the Pacific island nations with fishing countries to agree on measures to conserve tuna stocks.

Two high seas pockets between the islands' economic zones have already been excluded from fishing from this year. The PNA wants to expand this from next year to include new areas from Palau and Papua New Guinea in the west to Kiribati in the east, and Marshall Islands in the north to Tuvalu in the south.

EDIT

http://www.seeddaily.com/reports/Pacific_countries_aim_to_extend_high_seas_tuna_fishing_ban_999.html

[jaksavage]

1. Good for them

Stopping is the first step in healing.

[hatrack]

2. I wish them luck, as Japanese, Chinese, Korean, EU and pirate fishing fleets converge . . . .

.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. They could, of course, treat pirate fishing fleets as true pirates -

no fishing boat is going to outrun a military patrol boat, and if they know they will be fired upon if found in prohibited waters, they will not go there.

[kristopher]

4. Might want to edit area of OP header...