Released Date - February 08, 2010 PAC – TUNA INDUSTRY: M/VARIETY                     PACNEWS 1: Mon 08 Feb 2010   Pacific Presidents to launch Pacific OPEC style body to protect Tuna   08 FEBRUARY 2010 MAJURO (MARIANAS VARIETY) ----- Pacific island heads of state will meet in Palau at the end of February to map a new strategy that aims to develop an OPEC-style organization to control the tuna industry that generates $4 billion annually, but is under threat from over-fishing.   Palau President Johnson Toribiong’s goal to host this summit is to further discuss the establishment of an OPEC-type body, said summit organizer Nannette D. Malsol, an official with Palau’s Bureau of Marine Resources, in a reference to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. “This is the gold that we have control of and the Parties to the Nauru Agreement, or PNA, must strive to get more value from our tuna resources.” The summit will bring together presidents and prime ministers from the eight nations that control the area of ocean where the majority of the tuna is caught in the Pacific. This group the Parties to the Nauru Agreement include Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Nauru, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands established its first headquarters in Majuro earlier last week. The presidential summit to be held in Palau is designed to set in place a road map for the newly established PNA office, said Malsol. The new fisheries headquarters will facilitate the commercial aspirations of the parties as a first step in this evolutionary process. Although fisheries ministers representing Forum Fisheries Agency member nations meet annually, there has never been a presidential summit on what is unarguably the Pacific’s most important natural resource: tuna. This is the first summit on fisheries at the presidential level, said Marshall Islands Foreign Minister John Silk, who said Marshall Islands President Jurelang Zedkaia will be attending the summit in Palau. The summit is set for 25 Feb 25. Although the Pacific is touted as having one of the last healthy fisheries in the world, scientists warn that two staples of the global sashimi market, bigeye and yellowfin tuna, are in danger of being over-fished. …PNS (ENDS)