Pacific tuna cartel

This sounds like a great idea. AP:

Last month, eight Pacific nations responsible for a quarter of the world's tuna catch said they planned to start an OPEC-like cartel to conserve stocks and also boost their financial returns.

Eni Faleomavaega, who represents American Samoa in the US Congress, said at a House of Representatives hearing on Wednesday that the United States should support the development of the cartel.

"You're talking about a four-billion-dollar industry that doesn't go to the benefit of these island nations," Faleomavaega said.

"The problem here is that most of the fishing is done by foreign countries or foreign companies and they get a pittance as far as the results."

Sounds like a great idea.  This ought to eliminate the dependency of these countries on foreign aid.   AFP has background:

Leaders of eight Pacific nations responsible for a quarter of the world's tuna catch vowed Thursday to conserve stocks of the fish and increase their own financial return from the lucrative industry.

Despite their waters producing much of the world's tuna, the impoverished nations receive only three to four percent of the wholesale value of the catch, which is mainly controlled by foreign companies.

At a summit in the Palau capital Koror, the eight leaders vowed to coordinate efforts to increase their share of the income while stepping up conservation efforts.

"We are one of the players in this global industry," said Transform Aqorau, the director general of the eight-country grouping, known as the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA).

Thursday's agreement aims to develop ways to increase income through higher access fees and greater restrictions on fishing in the Pacific waters.

The PNA, which has established an office in the Marshall Islands, will extend the closure of some fishing areas and introduce competitive bidding for licences.

"We the Pacific island states own the fishing grounds, and so we must bring under control access to these fishing grounds," Palau President Johnson Toribiong said.

The PNA member countries are the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.