SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE SECOND REGULAR SESSION

Tonga has approximately 700,000 km2 of undeclared EEZ which extends from Latitude13 to 25 degrees offers moderate potential for exploitation. Historically, the annual catches of tuna species are dominated by the deep swimming albacore species which makes up 70%, less than 20 % are yellow fin and 10 % are big eye. Skipjack and yellow fin are surface tuna species, they are known to occur more seasonally and are believed not to be fully exploited in Tonga's fisheries waters. 2. Fleet Structure Following the development of the domestic longlining in late 1990s the tuna fleet increased to peak in 2002 and 2003 and has subsequently declined due to poor catch rate and high operation cost. During the second half of 2004 and whole of 2005, the number of licensed tuna longline vessels were actively fishing were only 12 and 9 respectively. At the end of 2004 most of the Locally Based Foreign Fishing Vessels (LBFV) relocated to other countries in the region and returned back to China. Table 1 shows the number of longline fishing vessels that were licensed to fish in Tonga waters