Who pays for SPC to service tuna fishery management meetings?
One thing I want to clear up whilst I have the floor is the reason why nobody from SPC was able to attend the US Treaty Consultation (in Palau in December) last year. This was recently brought to my attention, through the traditional informal raised eyebrow, by a couple of countries during the 39th FFC in Apia. The simple answer is that we couldn t afford it, so close to the end of the financial year. Many Forum member country representatives have become so accustomed to the Oceanic Fisheries Programme being on hand to advise them during all kinds of regional tuna consultations that it has perhaps been assumed that our attendance is paid for by these consultations themselves, or some other specific budgetary provision. It is not. Almost everything, apart from attendance at scientific committees of the Western Regional Pacific Fisheries Management Council (covering US territories), has to come out of donor tuna science project budgets or out of the personal travel budget of the one pers
