In Brief 2019/11 The Pitfalls of Regionalism: The Participation of Pacific Island Countries in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) Transform Aqorau Introduction Although regional cooperation has its place in the interactions between Pacific Island countries (PICs), it should not be at the expense of the PICs’ development of capacity and self-reliance. There is a place for the provision of technical support for PICs through regional agencies. However, support that creates dependency on regional agencies is self-defeating, and unsustainable. Regional cooperation is about self-determina- tion, empowering PICs to develop their natural resources and capacities to reduce reliance on donors and regional agencies for technical and policy support. I argue that regional agencies are undermining the local capacity of PICs by making them dependent, by spoon-feeding them in the development of conservation and management measures for tuna resources under the Western and Central Pacific Ocean Fisheries Commission (WCPFC). This is a discernable trend that has become more apparent in recent years, and through which regional co-operation can have a detrimental, rather than a positive, effect on capacity-building and self-reliance. The WCPFC negotiation process: The increasing complexity of conservation and management measures The WCPFC is the premier United Nations-mandated inter- national fisheries organisation for tuna in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO). Its membership consists of the 17 members of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) and the major tuna fishing states. Its mandate covers the management and conservation of tuna, a shared natural resource found largely in the waters of PICs. The abundance of tuna is not distributed equally, but eight of the member countries supply around 60 per cent of the world’s skipjack tuna, which is the major raw material used in canned tuna. 1 From 2015–2017, the catch of tuna in Kiribati’s waters alone was more than the total combined tuna catch from the east- ern Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean, reflecting the importance of the WCPO. A testament of the effective- ness of the WCPFC and the other fisheries organisations that form the governance structure for the fisheries manage- ment framework in the WCPO — the FFA and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement Office (PNAO) — is that the four key tuna stocks (skipjack, yellowfin, bigeye and albacore) are in the green, though bigeye and yellowfin are near their levels of full exploitation. In other oceans, at least one of the key stocks is in a state of overexploitation. The stakes are high for PICs. The economic value of the tuna fisheries is estimated at around US$5 billion. The direct returns to their treasuries are estimated at around US$500 million (FFA 2018). For the smaller PICs, revenue from tuna pays for basic social services and the salaries of public servants. The importance of the tuna resources should not be underestimated. The nature of conservation and management measures for tuna has become complex as the WCPFC establishes a more stable environment for managing tuna. This includes harvest control rules, harvest strategies, limit reference points and target reference points. Political differences over the measures between PICs and fishing states are a constant challenge. Given the different interests of the PICs and fishing states, the negotiations can become political, often impacting the efficacy of the management measures. The WCPFC meets annually, and the political dynamics between strong versus weak and rich versus poor coastal and market states, and developed and developing states, are played out in the development of conservation and management measures for the world’s healthiest tuna stocks. The WCPFC’s Scientific Committee analyses the status of stocks and recommends management action based on assessments by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and the Technical and Compliance Committee. The latter provides technical analysis on the effectiveness of the measures. The paperwork required is extensive, and the nature of the scientific and technical papers is complex. The meeting sessions are long and key decisions on the management of the tropical tunas are taken during marathon sessions. In-house resources to analyse