Kiribati to open one of world?s largest marine protected areas to commercial fishing

The Kiribati government has announced it will open up one of the world’s largest marine protected areas to commercial fishing, citing economic benefits to its people.

Kiribati, a collection of islands in the central Pacific and which has an EEZ larger than the size of India, catches 700,000 tonnes a year of tuna. More tuna is caught in Kiribati’s waters than in the waters of any other nation in the world.

In a press statement issued on Monday, the office of the president of the Kiribati government confirmed it was opening the protected zone citing the huge economic cost to Kiribati, a developing nation, of the ban.

But the Kiribati government said that when it established PIPA it was assured it would be able to recoup the revenues lost from fishing licences, which make up more than 70% of Kiribati’s total annual revenue, but that this had not eventuated.

The government said years after PIPA’s inception it was not sufficient to meet the present need of the people of Kiribati and the country’s future development needs.

The statement also reiterated the Kiribati government’s commitment to conservation efforts by investing in marine and biodiversity protection and promoting climate resilience.

The government said that since PIPA’s closure to commercial fishing, there had been an 8% decline in demand for fishing in Kiribati’s EEZ translating to a loss in revenue of up to USD$146m from 2015 to the present.

Former president Anote Tong, who was responsible for overseeing the creation of PIPA, expressed his strong disappointment with the announcement, but said the proper process, which involves a parliamentary vote on opening up PIPA to fishing, still had to be observed.