2. Introduction

2.1 Background

Sea safety and related issues are crucially important in Pacific islands fisheries. In some of the countries the accident rate for fishers is among the highest in the world. Over the last four decades various UN agencies, regional organizations, donor agencies and others have made efforts to address the situation. On the regional level, in 1991 FAO implemented one of the largest sea safety initiatives in the region - a survey of sea safety issues in 16 countries. This was followed by efforts of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), especially in the area of sea safety awareness.

In early 2003 FAO undertook another survey of fisheries-related sea safety in the region. The objective of the work was to consolidate the experience gained by selected Pacific Island countries in safety at sea with the view of improving ongoing and future activities in the region. This report summarizes the finding of the survey.

Five major themes were covered in the survey. These topics and specific information to be collected on each topic are:

Fisheries management

• A detailed description of fisheries management in each selected country.
• A description of the effects of management developments on fishers' safety and accidents.
• Has sea safety been included in fisheries management initiatives? If so, how? If not, why not?

• What could be done to ensure that sea safety is included in fisheries management?

Safety programmes

• A description of the programmes that have been implemented since the last FAO study in 1991.
• What has been especially effective in these programmes?
• Which initiatives have had little or adverse effect on fisher's safety?

• What are the important areas for future interventions?

Data recording

• Which authority is responsible for data recording, analysis and feedback in the different countries?
• How is data on accidents gathered, analysed and presented?
• What is done with the data generated, are there follow-up activities?
• Based on the above, how could data collection and analysis be improved?
• What conclusions can be drawn from the existing data?

• A presentation of existing data, for the last ten years, on accidents related to fishing operations from the different countries

Legislation

• A description of the present legislation for safety on fishing boats and for fishing operations in the different countries.

• A description of existing regional legislation and agreements regarding safety at sea.

• Which authorities are responsible for the legislation related to safety for fishing boats and fishing operations?

• Which authorities are responsible for inspection of fishing vessels?

• Is the existing legislation enforced?

• Based on the above, how could legislation and enforcement of legislation be improved?

Boatbuilding and vessel design

• A description of past and ongoing initiatives related to fishing vessel design.
• How have these initiatives affected the safety of fishing vessels?
• Are safety issues being addressed in the vessels constructed in the region?
• Are there any successes in the attempts to promote the use of sail?
• Is there a need for future vessel design work in regards to safety, and if so, in what areas?

• Is there a role for FAO in the interface between naval architecture and safety?

2.2 Survey and report considerations

Ideally, a study sea safety in the Pacific islands would entail visits to each country. Unfortunately, funding and time constraints dictated that, unlike the 1991 FAO survey, only five countries would be directly surveyed in the present study: Tuvalu, Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and Kiribati^[1]. It was the intention that by surveying a selection of five countries from Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, including both atoll and high island countries, many of the important sea safety issues and recent developments in the region would be covered.

Not all aspects of sea safety in the region were covered in the survey. The information collected was largely restricted to the five topics detailed in Section 2.1 above. As such, other important topics such as causes of accidents, search/rescue, and survival at sea were not addressed. The scope of vessels covered was restricted to locally-based fishing boats of up to about 20 metres in length.

The term "safety" requires clarification. As with the earlier FAO study (McCoy 1991), "safety" is associated with the ability of a vessel to return to port (or more usually the island or village) at the completion of a voyage or trip. Other aspects of safety in fishing such as accidents with gear or in fish handling, dealing with illness on board, collisions at sea, and SCUBA are not addressed in this report.

Two consultants were recruited for the survey. One of the consultants, Mike Savins, was responsible for collecting, analysing, and presenting the information related to Kiribati. The other consultant was responsible for the other four countries and writing up the material.

The survey commenced on 20 January 2003. Between that date and 23 February five countries were visited and 71 individuals were interviewed from government agencies, regional organizations, fishing companies, boatbuilding operations, and fishing vessels. These people and their institutional affiliations are given in the Appendix.

2.3 The Pacific Islands region

Recognizing that some of the audience for this report may have limited knowledge of the Pacific islands, information on the region and features important for sea safety is provided here.

In reference to the fisheries of the Pacific islands, there is often uncertainty over the geographical area in question. In roughly descending size, the western and central Pacific Ocean (WCPO), the US South Pacific Tuna Treaty area, Secretariat of the Pacific Community statistical area (Figure 1), FAO statistical area 71, SPC area, and the EEZs of Pacific Island FFA-member countries are used to describe the "region". Unless otherwise stated, the term "Pacific Islands region" referred to in this report is that of the 200-mile zones of Pacific Island countries. The term "Pacific Island countries" is used here to refer to the 14 independent Pacific Island nations.

The political entities of the Pacific islands are characterized by large exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and, in the main, very small land areas. The total area of the region's EEZs is estimated to be 30 569 000 km², equivalent to about 28 percent of the world's EEZ area. The land area is 552 789 km², of which 461 690 km² (84 percent) is in Papua New Guinea.

In general, the islands increase in size from east to west. Most islands rise steeply from the deep ocean floor and have very little underwater shelf area. Coral reefs characteristically surround the islands, either close to the shore (fringing reef) or further offshore (barrier reef), in which case a coastal lagoon is enclosed. The area includes many atolls, which are the remnant barrier reefs of islands that have subsided. Some of the more recent islands in the area lack coral reefs.

Some distinctive features of the region that are important for sea safety include:

• mainly small-scale fishing in inshore/coastal areas and larger scale tuna fishing offshore;

• the use of fish aggregation devices (FADs) to facilitate the access by small-scale fishers to tuna resources;

• occurrence of destructive cyclones, mainly during the seasons of maximum oceanic wartonnesh;

• the presence of communities in most countries that may have only limited contact with urban areas;

• Australian-funded patrol boats and maritime surveillance advisors in most countries;

• significant amount of inter-island transport on small boats, many of which also serve as fishing vessels;

• lingering tradition of the use of sail in the remote areas of about half of the countries;

• a large number of foreign tuna fishing vessel operating in the offshore areas;

• the existence of maritime or fisheries academies in several countries;

• the number of seafarers and mariners familiar with the sea is a high percentage of population relative to larger nations.

Map courtesy of SPC

Figure 1: Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) Statistical Area

Also worth mentioning is the close-knit nature of Pacific Island communities. Unlike some of the larger nations addressed by major sea safety programmes, most people in the governments and administrations of Pacific Island countries have friends/relatives working in the fishing industry, or may be part-time commercial fishers themselves. As an example, in one country the Secretary of Foreign Affairs was involved in a sea safety incident which involved drifting for several days. The close-knit nature of Pacific Island countries also has significant implications for enforcement of safety legislation.

Fisheries cooperation, fostered by the regional organizations, is another prominent feature of the Pacific islands. The region has two organizations with major involvement in fisheries matters and several others with peripheral involvement:

• The Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) headquartered in Noumea, New Caledonia has a fisheries programme which is primarily concerned with scientific research on the tuna fisheries and with research, development, and management of the coastal fisheries for the 22 countries and territories in the Pacific islands.

• The Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) headquartered in Honiara, Solomon Islands is concerned primarily with economic, policy, and management aspects of the offshore tuna fisheries in the 14 independent Pacific Island countries plus Australia and New Zealand.

The table below gives information on vessel numbers in the region.

Estimates of fishing vessel numbers

P/L = Pole and line vessel; P/S = Purse seiner; L/L = Longliner