AUSTRALIAN marine biologist Andrew Wright has worked for 30 years = to manage and conserve the fish resources of the Pacific, where half the = world's tuna is caught.
Wright is "gravely concerned" by plans to increase the record-high catch = of vulnerable deep-sea tuna, and wonders why few Australians seem to = care.
Politics might explain why. While the Rudd government has been driving a = populist agenda to save a few hundred whales, it's shown scant interest in = protecting tuna, which is a key source of income for regional centres in = Australia and around the Pacific.
Wright was until recently the first chief executive of the Western and = Central Pacific Fisheries Commission , which began operations in 2007 out of = a small office in the Federated States of Micronesia, with a budget of $3 = million. Its area of jurisdiction covers one-fifth of the Earth's = surface.
While Environment Minister Peter Garrett has taken a defiant stand on = whales, declaring a "no compromise" position on his call for a complete = cessation of whaling by Japan, marine conservation isn't even in his = portfolio.
This appears to be a significant oversight given that the industry also = catches thousand of marine creatures each year, including turtles and = albatrosses.
Tuna conservation falls under the Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and = Fisheries, Tony Burke, who's had very little to say about this issue. When = Focus asked Burke's office for a comment on what the Rudd government could do = to address Wright's concerns, it asked its department to produce a lengthy = statement of background information on the issue.
A 2007 AusAID paper shows that support for fisheries management in the = Pacific has been a low priority for Australia. It represented just 0.55 per = cent of Australia's aid budget in the region in the five years to 2004, well = behind Japan at 13 per cent of its aid budget and Britain at 12 per cent.
The lack of policy interest is despite Australia having some the best = minds in this field.
Tom Kompas of the Australian National University is a world-regarded = expert who has called for deep cuts to Pacific fishing, to allow stocks to = recover and fishing to resume at sustainable rates.
Kompas calls it a win-win for the environment and for industry. When fish = are more plentiful they are easier to catch and therefore more profitable for = fishing fleets. The downward spiral in stocks also means less profitable = fishing.
Wright says the amount of political and media attention given to whales is = unbalanced, given the significance of tuna to Pacific economies. "Not only = are tuna important as a globally traded commodity but in the Pacific Islands = region they are often the only renewable resource available. The health of = the tuna stocks in the central and western Pacific is directly significant to = the lives and livelihoods of people in all Pacific Island nations," he = says.
World Wildlife Fund fisheries campaigner Andrew Trott believes the Rudd = government has made a strategic decision not to challenge Japan and other = fishing nations on tuna, and has instead spent its finite political capital = on the more popular whaling issue.
He says there is a "great deal more" diplomatic effort going into = protecting whales, which reflects Australia's concerns about trade relations = with countries such as Japan and Taiwan.
One official observes that Japan doesn't mind all the fuss about whales = because it deflects attention away from its real agenda: securing a greater = supply of tuna from the Pacific.
Scientists have called for a drastic 30 per cent cut in the catch of = bigeye tuna, which is sold as a sashimi-grade tuna in Japan, but the most = recent meeting of the commission failed to take any action. Wright admits the = result was disappointing. Despite the warnings, the annual tuna catch from = the region has reached an all-time high of 2.5 million tonnes.
The commission has introduced a ban on crude fishing techniques known as = fish aggregating devices, but footage taken from a Greenpeace ship shows this = is being ignored.
While acknowledging that the region can support the present catch of = skipjack tuna, which is the smaller variety that ends up in cans, Wright says = bigeye tuna is "close to overfished". He is pessimistic about the prospect of = achieving the reduction in fishing demanded by scientists.
Tuna fishing is one of the Pacific's biggest sources of foreign exchange = and it is an important industry for fishing towns in Queensland and northern = NSW.
Even scarcer is bluefin tuna, which is caught in the waters directly south = of Australia. Its breeding stock sits at about 5 per cent of the original = level.
Australia recently accepted a 24 per cent cut to its bluefin quota even = though extensive over-fishing by Japan over two decades has driven down the = stock. The cut angered the industry based in South Australia's Port Lincoln, = which argued that Japan, which ran a high-seas smuggling operation worth = about $10bn, should have sustained a bigger cut.
Wright, who finished his contract as the WCPFC's chief executive in = February, says pressure on the region's valuable tuna stocks is immense, with = indications that more than 40 large fleets will be seeking to enter the = fishery within the next three years.
Of greater concern is support among some Pacific countries for an = increased fishing effort, defying the warnings of scientists.
The dire prospects for deep-sea tuna cannot be blamed only on Asian and = Western nations that fish in the region.
Pacific states, which issue licences for vessels to operate in their = exclusive economic zones, exert increasing control over fishing levels, he = says.
A number of Pacific countries are not concerned about conservation because = they rely on more plentiful skipjack tuna, even though vulnerable tuna and = wildlife often get caught in nets.
In Wright's time running the WCPFC, it introduced an observer program on = ships and satellite monitoring to track activity.
Despite these failures, some Pacific nations appear to be taking matters = into their own hands.
Eight island nations known as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement have = refused foreign fishing fleets access to their EEZs unless countries agree = not to fish on the high seas.
Former WCPFC chairman Glenn Hurry believes that the decline in stocks can = be arrested, even though the track record of similar organisations across the = world is not encouraging.
But he says some Pacific nations are increasingly aggressive in defending = their resources.
Pacific countries have learned they can "make money out of prosecuting = foreign vessels".
Hurry says there is "real strength" emerging from Pacific countries in the = way they police their EEZs.