Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — U.S Congressman Ed Case (D-Hawaii) has responded to concerns over the “perceived impacts on communities reliant on fishing” on the federal proposal for marine sanctuary designation for the Pacific Remote Island Areas (PIRA) — a move that would expand the Pacific Remote Island National Marine Monument (PRINMM).

And in particular, he addressed critics who spoke-out on the impact of such a proposal on American Samoa and the StarKist Samoa cannery.

The Hawai’i Congressman made his points known in a June 1 letter to Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere, Richard W. Spinrad where Case reiterated his strong support of the proposed designation of a national marine sanctuary covering all waters of the PRINMM.

The proposed expansion was initiated by the Pacific Remote Islands Coalition, and Casey worked closely with the group and others “to advance strong and enduring protections for this pristine ocean ecosystem, which is not only critical to the broader Pacific marine ecosystem but has longstanding cultural and historical ties to the indigenous peoples of  the Pacific,” according to the Congressman’s letter.

Though public reaction to the proposal “has been overwhelmingly positive, I must address stated concerns from some about the perceived impacts on communities reliant on fishing, especially in our nation’s insular areas,” Case wrote.

“We must evaluate and address these claims based on the empirical data of actual impacts, and where negative impacts are actually demonstrated we must identify whether and how to address them while  implementing this truly rare opportunity to the fullest,” he explained.

“Attention by critics in this area has focused largely on American Samoa and its cannery, which is the only community even arguably impacted by full sanctuary designation,” he pointed out.

He argued that: “While individuals associated with the cannery have outwardly pointed to the fishing regulations related to the PRINMM as a primary factor in a reduced supply from U.S. flagged purse seine vessels, actual empirical fisheries data shows that despite the initial monument designation and later expansion under the Bush and Obama administrations, U.S.-based fishing has been largely unaffected.”

Casey explained that the waters around the Pacific Remote Islands (PRIs) are most commonly fished by the U.S. tuna purse seine fleet, but this fleet’s presence is minimal; no more than nine vessels have visited the proposed expansion area each year for the past six years.

“The fleet is primarily fishing areas on the high seas and in fishing grounds closer to their home ports,” he claimed. “U.S. tuna purse seine vessels also fish in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and deliver to Latin America. This was preferred so much in 2021 that these vessels went several months without delivering to the cannery in American Samoa.

“The fishing effort that does take place in the area around the PRIs represents a small fraction of the fleet’s total effort,” he said.

Casey points to data available through the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and reinforced by a recent independent analysis produced by the Environmental Markets Lab (emLab) at the University of California Santa Barbara, that “fishing  catch and effort taking place in the unprotected, proposed expansion area of the PRIMNM are  very low, both historically and over the past five years.”

He said the emLab study in particular found that the U.S. purse seine fleet spent less than 1% of its effort fishing in the expansion area over the last five years.

And when focusing on purse seine fishing trips that landed in Pago Pago between 2018 and 2022, emLab found that 60% of U.S. purse seine fishing effort happens in the high seas, with a further 34% within non-U.S. exclusive  economic zones.

 Another argument made by Case is that following requests from the U.S Congress, the U.S Government Accountability Office studied the economic viability of the tuna canning industry in American Samoa and found that it is not particularly dependent on these fishing areas.

“The Samoa cannery industry is instead affected by many compounding factors, including increases in the minimum wage, legal fines imposed on the owner of the remaining cannery as a result of its role in a price-fixing conspiracy and  violations of U.S. federal environmental laws, and increasing international competition from  lower wage nations,” he said.

Several other issues were covered in Case’s three-page letter that was publicly released Tuesday via federal portal (www.regulations.gov), which is also where details of the Congressman’s letter and other public comments are posted. A majority of the comments support the expansion.

June 2 was the deadline for public comment submission and as of yesterday morning there’s been no new information from the federal government on Gov. Lemanu P.S Mauga’s request to extend the comment period.