The European Union’s newly introduced Ambassador to the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu has added another first to his portfolio as he settles into his role – seeing how regional surveillance over fisheries is being led by the Fisheries Surveillance Centre in Honiara.
Ambassador Leonidas Tezapsidis made his first visit to the regional headquarters of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency in Honiara last week.
The EU supports Solomon Islands through regional partnerships, which includes a multi-million dollar tuna fisheries project which works to ensure Pacific people get a fairer slice of multi-billion dollar benefits from tuna industries.
The EU is a major market for Pacific tuna products and its vessels also provide licensing fees to many Pacific nations for fishing rights to their Exclusive Economic Zones.
