The surveillance of the waters and marine resources of Papua New Guinea (PNG) has been elevated close to the level of both Australia and New Zealand with the introduction of new vessels equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance technologies including drone capabilities.

The Managing Director of the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) Mr. Justin Ilakini said the introduction of these facilities have lifted the capability of the NFA to provide an effective work in protecting PNG waters and the marine resources from illegal fishing and unregulated fishing.

The NFA just last week welcomed two new vessels with two more on the way of which one will be handed over the Autonomous Bougainville Government. These vessels Mr. Ilakini says will do an enormous job in improving surveillance of PNG's Exclusive Economic Zone which is quite large.

“We just going to grow from strength to strength from here knowing that without protection, the future will be uncertain. So, we will start building our resources, start building our assets to work with our bilateral, multilateral, even our partners in the national level, to secure our future, to secure our resources for our people for the future,” said the NFA Managing Director.

PNG’s Exclusive Economic Zone in one of the biggest in the region, almost 3 million square kilometers. This poses a challenge to surveillance, but Mr. Ilakini says otherwise with the new equipment and facilities NFA now has.

“With these assets, I am glad to announce that we’ll be able to cover at least fifty percent (50%) to sixty percent (60%) coverage of our entire Exclusive Economic Zone.”

The NFA would achieve this by using its surveillance facilities to work alongside the police, defence force and security partners to address not only illegal and unregulated fishing, but counter transnational crimes within PNG’s jurisdiction.