Fishy business. The Social Impact of SST.pdf - Act Now!

. Marine Ripples articleThe following is a draft of an article for the journal Marine Ripples, by a Wewak-based WWFemployee at the time, April 2001.For Marine RipplesFrom Stephen Knight, Sepik Community Land Care Project.South Seas Tuna Corporation’s plans to build a new tuna processing factory in Wewak, PapuaNew Guinea, now has opposition from a newly formed NGO umbrella group. The East SepikNGO Focal Group was set up early March 2001 to co-ordinate concerns about the proposedfactory. Primarily the group worries that social impacts associated with some tuna factories –low wages, prostitution (including paedophilia), AIDS, substandard housing and the creation ofa pool of unemployed – are not being addressed by SSTC.SSTC is a joint venture between local PNG business people (ANGCO Ltd) and the StarKistSeafood Company. StarKist is a division of the Heinz corporation. Unfortunately for the jointventure, experience of locals in a nearby tuna processing factory just down PNG’s north coast inMadang is less than satisfactory. Unbearable odours, low wages, poor pollution control andprostitution are reported. Despite building the factory in 1996, the Madang factory owners, RDTuna of the Philippines, appear to have a factory with environmental controls and staff relationsmore in line with twenty years ago.77