Page 35 - November 2021 IB FINAL

Fisheries

OUR OCEAN’S PROMISE

FROM ASPIRATIONS TO INSPIRATIONS:
THE MARSHALL ISLANDS FISHING STORY

By Giff Johnson

The story of how the Marshall Islands went from be-
ing a bystander in commercial fishing in the Pacific to
operating the world’s busiest tuna transshipment port,
two fish processing facilities, a purse seine vessel net
repair yard, and a fleet of locally-flagged and -based
fishing vessels is documented in Giff Johnson’s new
book, “Our Ocean’s Promise: From Aspirations to Inspi-
rations — The Marshall Islands Fishing Story”.
We publish an extract of the book with Giff’s permis-
sion here.

A new era for fisheries management
When President Amata Kabua launched his govern-
ment’s aggressive move into the commercial tuna
industry, with the purchase in 1988 of the Koorale
purse seiner, he saw the potential gains for the country
by going beyond selling fishing licenses to distant water
fishing nations. The primary goal was finding a way to
develop a domestic tuna industry to increase the piece
of the fishery “pie” for the Marshall Islands. The con-
cept of participation in the tuna “value chain” wasn’t
then a term used widely. But the idea of domestic
development and greater engagement in the industry
by island countries was a vision that would underpin
the program pursued by the Parties to the Nauru Agree-
ment and lead to its later success in implementing its
Vessel Day Scheme that fundamentally altered manage-
ment and control of the purse seine tuna fishery in PNA
waters.
In the late 1980s, however, there was little more
than a vision. None of the pieces were in place. The
Marshall Islands government wanted to establish a do-
mestic tuna industry. It was intent on investing, it had
US Compact of Free Association funding available, and
it was encouraged by Washington and industry authori-
ties to do so. All the pieces had to be put together to
make it work: purse seine and longline fishing vessels
willing to base themselves in Majuro had to be located
or purchased, the fish base built by Japan but largely
unused in its first few years had to be set up with
competent management to supply locally-based fishing
boats and to process fish for export, and air cargo ser-
vice had to be developed to export fresh tuna to inter-
national markets. All of this the government did with,
for the most part, direct investment. By the mid-1990s,
unable to sustain heavy subsidies to the Air Marshall
Islands jet service and for fishing vessels that were all
losing millions of dollars, the government was forced The Marshalls 201 purse seiner, a joint venture between the Taiwanese Koo’s Fishing
Company and the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority, offloads a catch of tuna for
to pull the plug on everything. Purse seiners were sold, transshipment in Majuro. Photo: Giff Johnson.

Islands Business, November 2021 35