19 May
2006 - Gland, Switzerland – Governments around
the world are failing to prevent over-fishing
on the high seas, with many increasing catches
rather than enforcing better management, reveals
a new report from WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife
trade monitoring network.
Many fish stocks have collapsed
or are on the brink of commercial extinction despite
efforts within some regional fisheries management
organizations (RFMOs), which are the main mechanism
developed by States to regulate fishing on the
high seas — the areas of ocean beyond national
laws.
In the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries
Organization, for example, some dissatisfied members
have ignored quotas and unilaterally set their
own, while within the RFMO responsible for southern
Bluefin tuna, some countries regularly exceed
their quotas. Alarmingly, several States are still
not joining up to RFMOs and are undermining the
efforts of responsible countries.
“RFMOs are an established and
critical mechanism for combating over-fishing,”
said Dr Simon Cripps, Director of WWF’s Global
Marine Programme. “RFMOs must immediately implement
their conservation and management measures if
they’re to prevent empty oceans, empty plates
and lost livelihoods in the future.”
The new report — Follow the
Leader: Learning from experience and best practice
in regional fisheries management organizations
— illustrates both effective and ineffective practices
while also outlining how RFMOs can work smarter
and better.
Over the last decade the management
of high seas stocks has been challenged by the
expansion of bottom-trawling into deep water to
target new stocks. With most RFMOs slow to adopt
management measures for these fisheries, many
deep sea populations, such as orange roughy, have
collapsed.
“Although past performance of
most RFMOs has been poor, innovative solutions
to common problems have been developed by a few
organizations resulting in a more sustainable
approach,” said Anna Willock, TRAFFIC’s Senior
Fisheries Advisor and co-author of the report.
“What is now urgently needed
is for these best practice approaches to be shared,
improved upon and more broadly adopted to combat
destructive over-fishing on the high seas.”
The report is designed to inform
discussions in New York next week (May 22–26)
when governments meet for the Review Conference
on the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, the
legal framework for the management of fish stocks
on the high seas.
END NOTES:
• Governance of the world’s
oceans is characterised by a patchwork of organizations
tasked with the conservation and management of
living marine resources. Formal cooperation between
States through Regional Fisheries Management Organizations
(RFMOs) dates back to at least the 1920s and there
are now 16 RFMOs with a mandate to establish binding
management measures for fisheries resources.
• TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade
monitoring network, works to ensure that trade
in wild plants and animals is not a threat to
the conservation of nature. TRAFFIC is a joint
programme of WWF, the global conservation organization
and IUCN - The World Conservation Union.
