AFT Holdings voices concern for waning US interest in Pacific fisheries

News Release from AFT Holdings July 17 2014

SAN DIEGO and AUCKLAND, New Zealand—American treaty negotiations with the Pacific Island Nations concluded Saturday in Auckland, New Zealand, with a “No Deal” conclusion, leaving the United States Tuna Fleet without fishing access to the Pacific Ocean in 2015.

Proposed closure in U.S. territories in the Pacific currently under review by the Obama administration to revise the status to “Protected Monument Marine Parks,” without consultation with industry or science, has created an environment of increased pressure to secure fishing access within the remaining ocean.

AFT Holdings, Inc. is a shareholder of Ocean Global and Sea Global, the largest US Tuna Fleet, which operates 12 purse seine vessels navigating the Pacific. The vessels provide more than 100,000 tons of fish per year serving the U.S. canned market. Representatives of Ocean Global and Sea Global participated in the recent treaty negotiations, along with other tuna Industry members, U.S. State and National Marine Fisheries representatives, and noted their extreme disappointment in the outcome.

“The value offered for 2015 access represented a 38-percent increase over 2014 with 100 percent of the proposed increase coming from Industry,” said J. Douglas Hines, chairman and general partner of AFT Holdings, Inc. “With an unprecedented 57 percent increase alone from the U.S. Fleet over 2014 levels, the value for access considering the price of tuna collapsed from 2013 to 2014 makes economics difficult to bear.

”Although we do hope and expect to have an agreement in the next couple weeks it will not be without extreme apprehension and real cost.”

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Samoa News: “No deal” on Pacific tuna treaty — that means rough sailing for U.S fishing fleet

Background: Rep Hastings: Obama's Ocean Zoning Will Shut Down Tuna Fishery