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Samoa was first sighted by Roggerwein in 1722,. He gave the Samoa Islands the name the Isles of the Navigators, when he noted how much the natives used canoes.

The Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) was established in 1979 when ten Pacific nations signed the FFA Convention. Since that time the membership of the FFA has increased to seventeen. The FFA consists of the Forum Fisheries Committee (FFC) as the governing body comprising a representative from each member Country and Territory; and the FFA Secretariat based in Honiara in the Solomon Islands. A Council of Ministers meets on a biennial basis to provide oversight of regional fisheries matters.

Papua New Guinea (PNG) comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, located in the western Pacific, between the Equator and 12° South, and 141° - 160° East. It has a total land area (mainland and more than 600 islands) of approximately 463,000 km". Its Declared Fishing Zone (DFZ) has an area of approximately 2.3 million km". It is estimated that the population at the end of 1995 totaled 4.1 million, with an annual population growth rate of approximately 2.3 per cent. PNG is culturally diverse with between 700-800 different languages and dialects. Nearly 40 per cent of the population live in the densely-inhabited Highlands provinces and only about 13 per cent in coastal rural areas.

The effects of marine resource development, aggravated by the rise of population in some Pacific countries, are disturbing those elements on which life depends. Modem technology is making it possible for distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) to fish the Pacific Ocean and sometimes within the exclusive economic zones of Pacific Island countries. The coastal zones, the breeding grounds for marine life, are under pressure from overfishing, coastal run-offs and wastes dumped in the ocean. Efforts to secure sustainable development, conservation and management of the marine resources take place, firstly against a 'background of complex international, national and customary laws, and secondly against a background of plural legal systems where laws passed by a country's legislature, laws "received" during the colonial era, and customary law, all co-exist.

To date, few quantitative assessments of the marine resources of Palau have been conducted. For the off-shore tuna fishery, reasonable data time-series are available for the foreign access tuna fishery, but data for domestically based tuna operations are incomplete. For the near-shore fishery, reef resources are exploited by subsistence, commercial and recreational fishermen. Very few data are available that document trends in production for most reef-resident and reef-associated fisheries resources in Palau, except for the trochus fishery. Commercial landings data for the reef fishery are generally available only for the Palau Federation of Fishing Associations (PFFA) and information regarding subsistence catches is extremely scant, but anecdotal information gathered by Johannes (1991) and others indicates a general decline in fishing success for the main species in the inshore fishery. There is general agreement that the inshore fishery needs to be more effectively managed, for which an improvement to the type and quality of available fisheries information is required. Preston (1990), Ianelli (1987), Crossland (1990) and FFA (1987) all provide plans for improvements for data collection and analysis and management of the in-shore and offshore fisheries in Palau.

One of the major challenges for the fisheries sector across the globe will be managing the effects of the global economic crisis. The fisheries sector in the Pacific islands region will, like others around the world, be impacted by the global downturn. On the demands side one can expect that the there will be a weakening in demand for high value product such as sashimi grade tuna. A second impact might be that businesses will find it harder to obtain finance for investments in the tuna fishery. Much of what might occur will be outside the control of FFA, but there is a role to play in advising governments how best to respond to the situation