The Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture (M.A.F.) has denied reports from a local fisherman that Chinese-owned fishing vessels are “fishing right up to the beach” as exaggerated. 

If vessels were engaged in such illegal fishing it would be detected electronic monitoring and the vessels would be penalised, the Ministry’s Chief Executive Officer (C.E.O.), Tilafono David Hunter, said.

During an interview with the Samoa Observer this week, Tilafono said that claims of Chinese-owned vessels fishing right up the beach “is a bit of an exaggeration.”

“That issue, one of the comments that they can see them coming very close to the beach is a bit of an exaggeration,” he said.

“We have what you call a Monitor and Control Surveillance system that nearly in real time monitors the movements of these fishing vessels, commercial, local and foreign.”

Fisheries staff are trained to monitor the movements of the ships.

“They can determine whether it is a foreign vessel and does not have a license to fish and they can determine if a vessel is illegally fishing in our [Exclusive Economic Zone (E.E.Z.)] just by the movements. We have a good system,” said Tilafono.

“They know we will catch them so they do not want to [break the law]. Under the Fisheries Management Act we can penalise them. We have a penalty schedule...if they break the laws.”

Fishing licenses are issued on an annual basis but there is a limit on the number issued. 

Tilafono said he could not recall how many licenses have been issued by M.A.F.

Each license carries its own fee, determined by the size of the vessel. 

All long liners are required to have a license that permits them to fish in local waters. 

Purse seiners are not allowed to fish in Samoa’s E.E.Z. but they do come to Samoa to offload and ship their fish supplies out of the country.

Currently only two companies, Tradewinds Fishing Company and Apia Deep Sea Fishing, have commercial fishing licenses allowing them to fish within Samoa’s E.E.Z., said Tilafono. 

There are more than five vessels owned between the two companies, which have multiple longliner licenses for national waters. 

Tradewinds is 100 percent locally owned and operated. Apia Deep Sea is a foreign company registered to its main office on Apia Harbour.

Apia Deep Sea Fishing has multiple vessels and Tilafono said normally they fish in the waters of Cook Islands and Tokelau under the rules of those countries. 

“When they come in their fishing vessels are already full and they cannot fish anymore but as they come in and they have space they can fish and then come in,” he said.

The majority of fishing vessels that enter Samoa’s harbour do so for the purpose of transshipping (or the on-shipment of cargo to a new location), Tilafono said.

“They use our port to transship but they don’t have fishing licenses for our E.E.Z. They just come to offload and then the fish is containerised and then it goes on merchant ships to other countries,” he said.

“They use our port [because] geographically it is convenient compared to Fiji and the others but they don’t have fishing licenses to fish in our E.E.Z.”

Before a license is issued, each applicant must satisfy Samoa’s maritime requirements with the Ministry of Works, Trade and Infrastructure (M.W.T.I.), Tilafono said.

“We are not the only player here. Before a vessel is allowed to fish in our E.E.Z. they have to satisfy our maritime requirements,” the C.E.O. said.

“If they get cleared, they apply to us and they have to be registered here in Samoa. Local or foreign, we do have criteria.

“The decision to issue the license – there must be an agreement between the ministry and the vessel because these fishing vessels do not come on their own they are connected to a government. So we have to have that agreement that they will comply with our laws.”

Vessels that do tranship generate economic benefits for Samoa, Tilafono said. 

They include providing young people and wharf workers with work, while farmers can sell their produce to ships that need to resupply before returning to the ocean. 

The emergence of COVID-19, however, has slowed down wharf activity; ships can only offload cargo under stringent border restrictions; crew members are not allowed to leave their vessels.

In late December of 2020, Greg Hopping of Troppo Fishing Adventures voiced his concerns about issuing fishing licenses to Chinese-owned fishing vessels saying they only seek to “rape and pillage.” 

Allowing Chinese-owned vessels to fish in Samoan waters will deplete local fish supplies and threaten the nation’s food security, he said.

“Now the Chinese have got the right to fish in our territorial waters. They are not only fishing just outside our traditional zone, now they have been given permission to fish inside so they can fish right up to the beach...now I can’t qualify this but this is what I have been told,” Hopping said.

Hopping is a member of the Samoa International Game Fishing Association (S.I.G.F.A.).

He has been fishing Samoan waters for 20 years.

As far as fish supplies, Tilafono said, “I think we are okay” noting that M.A.F. continues to monitor the fisheries.

He advises fishermen to: “just take what you need to sell and eat.”

“When we look at food security for us if there is a complete lockdown or disruption of international trade, if there is a disruption of merchant ships coming I can’t foresee us being food insecure of crops, food that we get from the land,” said Tilafono.

“The last thing we want is overfishing in the reefs...so they can go out and get the fish or sell it locally or go to one of the fish exporters for export purposes.”