Annual Report
Mineral exploitation has spread from land to shallow coastal waters and is now planned for the offshore, deep seabed. Large seafloor areas are being approved for exploration for seafloor mineral deposits, creating an urgent need for regional environmental management plans. Networks of areas where mining and mining impacts are prohibited are key elements of these plans.
The biggest deep-sea mining operation so far was a cold-war ruse. In 1974, the US Central Intelligence Agency launched an elaborate operation to recover a Soviet submarine northwest of Hawaii, under the cover of a commercial venture to mine manganese nodules located on the sea floor. The spooks got a piece of the submarine but left any valuable minerals in the area for future prospectors.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is one of the largest countries in the Western Central Pacific region and is now the third largest producer of bêche-de-mer in the world, supplying around 10 percent of the global market.
Papua New Guinea’s Exclusive Economic Zone (PNG EEZ), 2.4 million km2 in extent, is one of the largest and more productive in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Industrial scale fisheries for tuna and associated species have operated since the 1950s, and in certain years, around 10% of the global catch of the main market species of tuna has been taken within the PNG EEZ. The tuna fishery is the largest of Papua New Guinea’s fisheries and represents a balance of both domestic industry development and foreign Distant Water Fishing Nations (DWFN) access arrangements.
IUU fishing constitutes one of the most serious threats to the sustainable exploitation of living aquatic resources. European (EC) Regulation No 1005/2008 of 29 September 2008 establishes a Community system to prevent, deter and
eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The Gulf of Papua (GOP) prawn fishery is one of the most valuable fisheries in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Catches have fluctuated widely and there has been limited success in assessing sustainable yields. The trends in catches and catch rates in the fishery were declining in the early 2000s. To maintain their economic viability, fishers were increasing their illegal trawling inshore within the 3 nautical mile (5.6 km) traditional fishery zone.
The fisheries development policy in Papua New Guinea is executed in the Sector Review and ADB Report, where new strategies such as promotion of market-oriented coastal fisheries and effective pro duction with modern fishing gear and vessels are identified. Despite of the development policy, the fisheries education has declined since the 1980's. There is less correlation between the development policy and education.
The Gulf of Papua Prawn Fishery (GOPPF) is located in the west of Port Moresby, near Kerema and extending west to the mouth of Fly River. It is one of Papua New Guineas important fishery that earns a revenue of around K10 million annually from prawn exports.
The industrial fishery for prawns in the Gulf of Papua is described and reviewed. The prawn stock is assessed. The effect of rainfall on yield is reported and discussed. Development of a comprehensive management plan for the Gulf of Papua Prawn fishery is outlined and new management recommendations for 1996, arising from field research in the 1995 closed season, are presented.
This paper aims to provide a basic review of marine resource use in the Western, Gulf and Central Provinces, and the mainland area of the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. As such it reviews the distribution of resources, their current utilisation, and the known extent of past use.
Socio-economic surveys were carried out in pilot sites in Papua New Guinea (Gulf of Papua Prawn Fishery), the Philippines (Samar Sea), Thailand (Trat and Chumphon) and Viet Nam (Kien Giang) as part of the Strategies for Trawl Fisheries Bycatch Management Project (REBYC-II CTI), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by FAO. No study was conducted in Indonesia as a result of the ban on trawl fisheries which began in January 2015.
Papua New Guinea (PNG) is renowned for the diversity of its terrestrial fauna. Iconic species include the birds of paradise, tree kangaroos and the cryptic but photogenic cuscus. In contrast, the marine fauna of PNG is poorly described, despite the importance of marine resources for domestic consumption and international trade. This fine book starts to redress this imbalance, by pointing out the significance of sharks and rays in the traditional culture of PNG and going on to provide a comprehensive account of their biological diversity
Socio-economic surveys were carried out in pilot sites in Papua New Guinea (Gulf of Papua Prawn Fishery), the Philippines (Samar Sea), Thailand (Trat and Chumphon) and Viet Nam (Kien Giang) as part of the Strategies for Trawl Fisheries Bycatch Management Project (REBYC-II CTI), funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and executed by FAO. No study was conducted in Indonesia as a result of the ban on trawl fisheries which began in January 2015. However, a paper based on key informant interviews was prepared. The socio-economic studies were undertaken to