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DMWR director’s statement of support for American Samoa’s fleet slammed

Local US longline fleet owner Sanchez says “shame on this ASG administration”
fili@samoanews.com

Local businessman and US longline fleet owner Carlos Sanchez says “shame on this ASG administration” for telling an international fishery meeting, with more than 500 delegates that the US flagged fleet in Pago Pago is “American Samoa’s fleet” which he says has been called by Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga a “foreign fleet”.

Sanchez also questioned ASG’s description of the US longline fleet based in American Samoa when the territorial government has a lawsuit pending in the Honolulu federal court over the reduction of the Large Vessel Prohibited Area (LVPA) in waters of American Samoa.

The US National Marine Fishery Service reduced from 50 to 12 miles the LVPA area for the local alia fleet, to allow the US longline fleet in American Samoa to fish the now available fishing grounds.

Sanchez made the comments in an email letter yesterday to Department of Marine and Wildlife Resources Director Dr. Ruth Matagi-Tofiga, who is leading the American Samoa delegation at this week’s Western and Central Pacific Fishery Committee meeting in Fiji.

Sanchez’s letter, which was copied to Samoa News along with several others locally and at the federal level — referred to yesterday’s Samoa News story that cites Matagi-Tofiga’s speech to the WCPFC meeting on behalf of ASG.

Part of the DMWR director’s presentation focused on the territory’s perspective on the proposed Target Reference Point for South Pacific Albacore, saying that the territory’s longline fishery is almost entirely dependent on the South Pacific albacore stock.

According to a copy of her statement, “American Samoa’s longline fishery is almost entirely dependent on the South Pacific albacore stock.”

In his email letter, Sanchez noted Matagi-Tofiga’s statement to the international community at the Commission meeting, “where you once again make reference to the U.S. flagged longline fleet as the ‘American Samoa's longline fleet’.”

“Shame on ASG for making claim to this longline fleet that the current Governor has called ‘a foreign fleet’ and has done nothing to support this fleet and continues to alienate the fleet with the ongoing lawsuit,” Sanchez wrote to Matagi-Tofiga. “While you fight for access for the [purse] seiners, you fight against access for our longline fleet and call us foreigners.” (See update of lawsuit in today’s Samoa News issue.)

“We used to be proudly called the American Samoa longline fleet, but this current ASG administration does NOT acknowledge nor support this fleet,” he said and emphasized that “we are a ‘US longline fleet’ operating in the U.S. EEZ federal waters-American Samoa.

Sanchez calls it a “crime for ASG to take credit for a fleet of boats that have been suffering, looked down upon by the current ASG administration and are near extinction and is only able to survive due to support” from the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and the canneries.

He revealed that he along with the American Samoa Longline and Fishing Association have requested the DMWR director “on many occasions that you do not call us your longline fleet only for your purposes and conveniences internationally when the support is absent locally.”

“This longline fleet is owned by private citizens and happens to be the ‘only’ U.S. fleet of commercial fishing boats where the owners actually reside in American Samoa and the owners are Native American Samoans,” he said.

“All the U.S. commercial fleet that you support have owners that don't reside in American Samoa and not one is a Native American Samoan, and yet they have 200% more support than this U.S. longline fleet,” he wrote to Matagi-Tofiga.

“I demand an apology for making claim to this longline fleet when the ASG does not recognize nor support us,” he said.

In her email response, also yesterday morning, Matagi-Tofiga explained that in these “international meetings, we have taken the stance to fight and protect our tuna fisheries whether they consider themselves US or American Samoa fishing fleets.”

“The US delegation and the US fishing industry are highly aware of our efforts and initiatives to reach out to them to solicit their views and to express these views even on the plenary,” she said.

“Although American Samoa is on an participatory status and technically part of the US delegation, we have grabbed this opportunity to express our support for the US longliners and purse seiners,” she noted. “We just hope that the American Samoa delegation is recognized by this effort.”

Sanchez responded not long thereafter, also yesterday morning, outlining the points he was making by asking:

•     Where is the ASG effort to support the US longline fleet?

•     Isn't there a pending [LVPA] lawsuit to deny us access for U.S. waters that are unused?

•     Has the Governor recognized that this longline fleet is also important to American Samoa?

•     Has the Governor recognized our existence?

“Explain to me where is the effort, is it only to blah, blah, blah? That is hypocrisy. It is different to say I love you but not show it,” he said and claims that he knows that someone else wrote the director’s statement and he also knows who guided the statement.

“...We have expressed… many times that ASG does not speak for us in any shape or form,” he said. “If your effort is just talk, then please stop talking about us, because everyone in the US delegation knows the problems and the hypocrisy of this statement and it has been manifested back to us.”

Sanchez further claims that someone is using Matagi-Tofiga “for their own agendas and knowing full well that the hypocrisy is apparent when you make a statement of support for the longliners and in fact this administration does the contrary.”

“Leave us alone, we are okay without the ASG,” he said.

It’s unclear at press time if Matagi-Tofiga responded directly to Sanchez without copying Samoa News as well as other local and off island officials.