Moving Towards Market Based and Incentive Based Approaches for Tuna Management in the Western and Central Pacific - The Case of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA)

presentationTuna management in the Western and Central Pacific (WCP) is complicated given the dynamic and sometimes conflicting interests of participating countries and actors exploiting the tuna resource in the region. Pacific Island Countries (PICs) through the Fisheries Forum Agency (FFA) and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) have developed a number of institutional and regulatory arrangements to control tuna fishing efforts within the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) but with minimal success. In more recent times market and incentive based approaches are being adopted to support and complement existing conservation and management measures (CMMs). Market and incentive based approaches provide fishers with the motivation and incentive to practice sustainable fishing by creating economic advantages for states and actors involved. This paper aims to analyse this shift within the context of PNA by investigating why PNA shifted from regulatory policies to New Institutional Economics (NIEs) or economics policy instruments by adopting market and incentive based mechanisms. The paper i) provides an overview of tuna regional treaties, regimes and agreements in the pacific, ii) highlights the shift in regional treaties and regimes with NIEs, and iii) examines implications of economic policy instruments on the level of cooperation. The paper concludes that market based mechanisms have brought in changes and much improvements to tuna negotiations and agreements among parties and actors compared to past experiences.