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Ledger 1 : 33 — For each dollar financing nature-based solutions in 2023, about $33 financed activities harmful to nature. (UNEP)
Cases / Fishing ban · Kiribati · 2015–2021

Kiribati opens Phoenix Islands protected area to fishing; trust dissolved

Short record: the main facts, with sources. A full case file has not been prepared.

Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
Not on record
  • The record does not name which of my species, waters, soils or forests were harmed.
What the record lacks: 2 none on record · 3 insufficient · 1 not measured See the gaps

Kiribati's Phoenix Islands Protected Area, closed to commercial fishing in 2015, was opened to fishing again in November 2021. IUCN reports that the fishing-ban area shrank to about 3% of the protected area and that the compensation trust was dissolved.

What?
Kiribati opened the Phoenix Islands Protected Area to commercial fishing in 2021, after a closure from 2015. Maritime Executive
Where?
Phoenix Islands, Kiribati, central Pacific
When?
Closed 1 January 2015; reopening announced November 2021; certification widened 2024
Who?
Gained
  • Purse seine fleets — reported a record catch in 2024
  • Thai Union — reported a record gross margin in 2025
Lost
None on record
Harmed
None on record
Why?
Maritime Executive's report gives the aim as boosting tuna fishing. Maritime Executive
How?
The government ended the closure to boost tuna fishing; a compensation trust was meant to offset lost licence revenue and was later dissolved. Maritime Executive
6 of 6 questions answered from the record

What happened

The record, in order.

The sources reviewed state that the Phoenix Islands Protected Area, about 408,250 square kilometres, closed to commercial fishing, including tuna, on 1 January 2015.

Maritime Executive reported in November 2021 that Kiribati terminated the marine protected area to boost tuna fishing.

IUCN's World Heritage Outlook (2025) says the fishing-ban area shrank to about 3% of the protected area and the compensation trust was dissolved.

The Marine Stewardship Council widened its sustainability certification in 2024 to cover fish-aggregating device (FAD) catches and bigeye tuna, after an independent adjudicator had halted an earlier expansion in 2022.

    In court and with insurers

    Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.

    Lawsuits and rulings

    No court case on record. No court has ruled on this case.

    Insurers

    No insurer decision on record.

    What we don't know

    Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.

    Nature

    • Not measured Harm to nature: The record holds no measurement of harm to nature.

    Record

    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: the trust raised about 7 million dollars, against claimed losses of 60 to 140 million dollars from 2015 to 2021.
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: fishing-licence revenue exceeded 70% of government revenue in 2018 to 2022, and demand for fishing in Kiribati's waters fell 8% after the closure.
    • Insufficient Reported but not verified: 1,500 to 2,200 FADs beached each year, and 44% of tracked buoys were abandoned.
    • None on record The sources do not state how much of the trust's funding was paid out or how it was used.
    • None on record Who gained from the reopening beyond the fleets and processors named above is not stated in the sources reviewed.

    Did the harm stop?

    Not stated in the sources reviewed.

    Who paid?

    Not stated in the sources reviewed.

    Sources

    Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts✓ Press and investigations— Communities and civil society— Researchers

    Press and investigations

    2. Phoenix Islands Protected Area
      IUCN World Heritage Outlook · 2025-10-11

    Connected cases

    Related matters, and cases linked to this one through the same organisations, with the role each played in both.
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