On our final episode of this season of The Catch, host Ruxandra Guidi and the reporting team head once again to the local fish market to hear directly from sellers on the challenges they face. Rux then sits down with regional expert and former U.S. official Kathryn Paik, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to hear about Chinese investment in the region that’s driving development in the Solomon Islands.

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On this episode of The Catch, Rux and the reporting team head to the island of Tetepare, in the western Solomons, to speak to park rangers tasked with protecting local marine life. Much of their work on the island is focused on combating poachers, with insufficient support from the government. Despite these challenges, as one ranger put it, “we still continue to survive.”

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There’s good news for the ocean coming out of the United Nations’ annual meetings in New York: 60 countries ratified the High Seas Treaty, meaning the landmark agreement can now be implemented. The Catch reporting team was on the ground in Nice, France, this summer to observe the latest diplomatic push. 

Then, we head back to the Solomon Islands, where host Ruxandra Guidi hears firsthand from observers on the dangers they face at sea.

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Host Ruxandra Guidi and the reporting team meet with descendants of climate refugees who arrived in the Solomon Islands in the 1960s from the atolls of Kiribati. This community, like many others across the Solomon Islands, continues to grapple with climate-fueled changes today. According to Alec Hughes, a coastal and marine management expert based in Munda, Solomon Islanders are witnessing changes in their local environment, and fish stocks that make it clear "that there’s a lot more fishers out there and there’s a lot of demand for fish.” Munda tribal chief John Pina shares Hughes’s concern as he notes that he, too, is observing a shift away from the cultural norms and traditional practices that have shaped his community for centuries.

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Host Ruxandra Guidi and the reporting team head to the island of Munda to join local fisher Tingo Leve as he fishes for skipjack tuna. The team then hears about the landmark Nauru Agreement, whose signatories control a big portion of the world’s tuna supply. Finally, the reporting team is joined by Adrian Wickham of SolTuna, the Solomon Islands’ top cannery.

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To kick off Season 6 of The Catch, host Ruxandra Guidi and her reporting team head to the Solomon Islands to hear about this Pacific island nation’s deep connection to the ocean. First, the team heads to Honiara’s fish market to hear firsthand from local fishers, processors, and sellers. Then they head to the Solomon Islands National Museum to speak with one of the museum’s archaeologists, Ruben Sangegeo, on the cultural and historical significance of fishing for these islands.

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The Catch is returning for another season, this time on tuna. Climate change is pushing this lucrative fish out of the Pacific islands’ waters, and host Ruxandra Guidi heads to the Solomon Islands to learn more. That’s coming up on Season 6 of The Catch. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

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The Catch hosted a live podcast taping at the United Nations’ third annual Ocean Conference in Nice, France. Moderator Philippe Cousteau was joined by former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and U.N. Special Envoy for the Ocean Peter Thomson to discuss diplomacy’s importance to our ocean. Our panelists followed this discussion by looking closely at the challenges and successes of the tuna fishery in the Pacific Islands, the focus for our next season.

Our panelists were Filimon Manoni, the Pacific Ocean commissioner for the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat; Chris Dorsett, the vice president of conservation for Ocean Conservancy; Kristin Kleisner, the lead senior scientist and senior director for oceans at the Environmental Defense Fund; and Paolo Domondon, the chief program and policy officer for Global Fishing Watch. And stay tuned for Season 6 of The Catch, coming to you later this summer.

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According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, roughly 4 in 10 people working in small-scale fisheries are women. Half are fishers themselves, and half process the fish, like Cary Badgie, from Gambia, whom the reporting team met as she salted and preserved the local catch.

Female activists and entrepreneurs also underpin these fishing communities, as you’ll hear from Senegalese climate activist Ndeye Yacine Dieng and local official and businesswoman Yayi Bayam Diouf, based in Dakar.

Finally, host Ruxandra Guidi gets a perspective on a possible way forward for fishmeal production in a conversation with Libby Woodhatch, the executive chair of MarinTrust.

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In a region characterized by high unemployment, food insecurity, and depleted fish stocks, many fishers are forced to migrate. The fishmeal plants dotting the coast have only exacerbated these existing problems, economist Rashid Sumaila notes, saying that “overfishing would still be an issue in West Africa without the plants. But the plants make them worse.”

On this episode of The Catch, host Ruxandra Guidi and her reporting partners look into the migration crisis. Senegalese reporter Borso Tall shares her reporting from a village in the region of St. Louis directly impacted by a fishmeal plant. And Sumaila sits down with Guidi to share his take.We want to hear what The Catch means to you! Reach out to us at [email protected].

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