The ocean wealth that keeps leaving Micronesia

Inside the Reef By Joyce McClure

More than 50 percent of the world’s tuna supply comes from the western and central Pacific Ocean, making it the most important tuna fishery on the planet.

The waters surrounding the Federated States of Micronesia help feed the world.

Every day, industrial fishing fleets harvest tuna from the FSM’s vast ocean territory, generating billions of dollars in global seafood markets. Yet only a small fraction of that wealth ever reaches Micronesian shores.

The FSM provides what Fijian fisheries consultant Lagi Toribau describes in the investigative documentary "Fatal Watch" as “the oil of the Pacific. It drives the lifeline for most Pacific island countries.”

The fish are shipped overseas—to Thailand, the Philippines, Taiwan, China and beyond—where they are cleaned, frozen, canned, packaged, branded and sold at far higher value than the FSM receives through permit fees or raw sales alone. Those downstream steps create factories, jobs, export earnings and corporate profits.

The real money is made after the fish leave the water.

Marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson has noted that industrial fishing powers extract vast quantities of fish from developing nations largely because those nations sell access to their fishing rights to foreign fleets. The arrangement provides important revenue for small island governments, but much of the industry's value is captured elsewhere.

The numbers show how small FSM’s slice really is.

Economic analyses supported by the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency and the World Bank indicate that Pacific Island governments typically capture only 3 to 5 percent of the delivered value of tuna caught in their waters through access fees.

Tuna caught in the waters of the 17 Forum Fisheries Agency member countries is estimated to be worth roughly $2 to $3 billion annually. Access fees paid by foreign fleets generate about $460 million each year for Pacific governments, revenue that in some countries accounts for half or more of national budgets.

At the far end of the supply chain, the numbers climb much higher. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that processed tuna products generate tens of billions of dollars annually at the point of final sale.

This isn’t a new problem.

In earlier reporting, I documented how commercial interest in grouper and sea cucumber sparked conflict in Yap, where a traditional chief was removed after making fishing deals with foreign crews without community consent. The backlash reflected concern about outsiders extracting valuable marine resources while leaving little benefit behind.

Those disputes were about more than conservation. They were about control, sovereignty and who ultimately profits from FSM’s ocean wealth.

For decades, American Samoa hosted one of the Pacific’s most important tuna processing hubs. In Pago Pago, the StarKist cannery formed the backbone of the territory’s private-sector economy.

Today, only one major cannery remains.

Even that operation faces mounting pressure. A PBS report in 2020 described fishermen supplying the plant as caught in a “perfect storm” of rising fuel costs and intense international competition.

If a mature processing hub like American Samoa struggles to compete in a global seafood market dominated by low-cost producers in Asia, launching new plants from scratch in Micronesia becomes even harder.

The absence of large-scale tuna processing in the FSM reflects the unforgiving economics of the industry.

Modern fish processing is energy-intensive and logistics-heavy. Freezing and cold storage must run nonstop. Ports must accommodate freezer vessels and container shipping. Food-safety standards require specialized equipment and trained workers. Supply volumes must remain large and consistent.

Above all, processors compete in a global commodity market where margins are razor-thin.

Thailand and the Philippines dominate not because they sit atop rich fishing waters, but because they have industrial infrastructure, lower labor costs, reliable power, dense shipping networks and decades of scale advantage.

FSM’s dispersed geography, high energy costs, limited workforce and distance from consumer markets make large factories far more expensive to operate.

Recognizing these limits does not mean FSM must remain a resource supplier.

The realistic question is not whether the FSM can outcompete Asia in mass canning. It cannot.

The smarter opportunity lies in capturing strategic parts of the value chain:

• Modern cold-storage and transshipment hubs

• Premium frozen tuna for higher-value markets

• Sustainability-certified seafood branding

• Regional logistics services for fishing fleets

Even limited local handling can increase the value of the catch by improving quality, creating competitive buyers and allowing vessels to return to the fishing grounds more quickly.

Fishing permits could also become stronger economic tools, bundling access with local offloading requirements, workforce training and infrastructure investment. Many resource-rich nations have used similar strategies to turn raw extraction into broader economic development.

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At its core, the FSM confronts a dilemma familiar across the developing world. One path continues to sell access to natural resources and to rely on fees and aid to fund government services. The other—far harder but potentially transformative—uses those resources to build industries that create jobs, skills and private-sector growth.

American Samoa’s struggling cannery is not an argument against value-added industry. It is a reminder that industrial development is globally competitive and unforgiving of weak infrastructure. But it also demonstrates what happens when processing exists at scale: jobs, export earnings and deeper integration into global markets.

The FSM’s challenge is not whether marine wealth exists. The question is whether Micronesia will remain primarily a supplier of raw resources while the real profits are captured elsewhere.

Geography has already given the FSM one of the richest fishing grounds on earth. The question now is whether policy, infrastructure and politics will turn that natural wealth into lasting economic opportunity.

The future of FSM’s fisheries will not depend on catching more fish. It will depend on keeping more of what those fish are worth.

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