Being an Observer on Foreign Tuna Boats Important Source of Pacific Islands Jobs
SEAFOODNEWS.COM [PACNews] By Matthew Dornan - March 4, 2015 -
I met Ali on a flight from Fiji to Funafuti, an atoll in the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu. He was on his way home from Korea, having completed four months as a fisheries observer on a Korean tuna fishing vessel. Sitting across from Ali was another observer, also on his way home.
Ali is one of 50 Tuvaluan fisheries observers whose job it is to monitor the activities of fishing vessels from distant nations such as China, Japan, Korea, the United States, Taiwan, and the European Union.
Observation of tuna fisheries efforts is also a key source of employment for Tuvaluans. Fifty observers may not sound like many, but in a country with only 2,000 formal sector workers, that is 2.5% of the workforce. That makes fisheries observation proportionally as significant as the mining industry in Australia.
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