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ENVIRONMENT: Int’l Cooperation Weak on Ocean Fisheries

Anika Stiefelhagen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 31 2006 (IPS) - With a quarter of all ocean fish stocks now depleted, policy-makers and conservation groups say it is critical to bring more countries on board an international treaty on sustainable fisheries management.

“Certain fish stocks have declined to the point where their commercial value has become insignificant. Other stocks have been so substantially reduced that their biological survival is seriously threatened,” U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report released here.

At the end of May, the United Nations is planning to hold a five-day meeting to assess the overexploitation of marine life in the high seas. It will review a 1995 agreement on conservation and management of “straddling and highly migratory fish stocks”, and will also explore the need to strengthen the agreement’s substance and methods of implementation.

A “straddling fish stock” is a species that can be found both within a nation’s exclusive economic zone – up to 200 nautical miles offshore – as well outside the zone. The category includes cod, halibut, pollock, jack mackerel and squid. Highly migratory species are those capable of migrating relatively long distances, like tuna, swordfish and sharks.

According to the report, species that are extremely threatened include some types of tuna, such as the bluefin and albacore, as well as shark species. For example, the basking shark is extremely vulnerable to overexploitation due to its slow growth rate. Other threatened species include sea turtle populations.

“The U.N. Fish Stocks Agreement (FSA) is an important and helpful agreement because it provides for ecosystem and precautionary approaches to fisheries management,” Harlan Cohen of the World Conservation Union told IPS.

“We expect that as more states join and as agreement on implementation measures – that is, specific conservation and management measures – is reached, the FSA will prove increasingly helpful,” he said.

A fact sheet released by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says that the proportion of overexploited and depleted fish stocks more than doubled between 1974 and 2003, from about 10 percent to close to 25 percent.

“The continued prevalence of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing highlights the lack of adequate management and control of activities on the high seas,” warned Duncan Currie of the international environmental group Greenpeace.

For the last 14 years, the top 10 countries accounting for 60 percent of global fish catches have been China, Peru, the United States, Indonesia, Japan, Chile, India, Russia, Thailand and Norway. But in 12 of 16 FAO statistical regions, including the Northwest Atlantic, Southeast Atlantic and Southeast Pacific, more than half of stocks are already fully exploited or overexploited.

Last week, the United Nations concluded a five-day preparatory meeting in advance of the upcoming May 22-26 conference on the FSA, considered to be the most important legally binding instrument for the conservation and management of ocean fisheries.

Nicholas Michel, U.N. legal counsel, told delegates: “There is a wide consensus that the world’s marine capture fisheries are at a crossroads.”

“It is widely recognised that fisheries policy now has to balance short-term economic and social benefits with the need to ensure long-term sustainability of fishery resources,” he said.

The agreement, which was adopted in August 1995 by the “United Nations Conference on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks”, was launched in December 1995. It has been signed by 59 states and entities, and contains clear obligations for states to conserve and manage fish stocks and to protect marine biodiversity. They must also “take into account the interests of artisanal and subsistence fishers”.

The FSA requires parties to cooperate in the implementation of its provisions, and to establish regional fisheries management organisations where none exist.

But two provisions of the agreement have reportedly stalled ratification by several states. One allows a state party to inspect fishing vessels flying the flag of another state party in high seas areas covered by a regional fisheries management organisation, in order to ensure compliance with the rules set by that organisation.

The other sets conservation and management measures of “straddling and highly migratory fish stocks” in areas under the national jurisdiction of coastal states and in the adjacent high seas areas.

According to the secretary-general’s report, “More ratifications/accessions from coastal states and distant-water fishing nations are needed in order to secure more comprehensive and effective implementation of the agreement.”

“Participation of all key coastal states and high seas fishing states is crucial to ensure wide acceptance of the new approaches to fisheries management it contains,” it said.

Problems addressed in the agreement include illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; fishing overcapacity; and the impact of lost or abandoned gear and related marine debris.

One delegate told IPS that there were no discussions on amendments or changes to the agreement. Rather, the main issue right now is whether non-state parties can participate in the May conference.

In an information sheet released this week, the World Conservation Union pointed to the problem of missing management organisations: In 75 percent of the high seas, there are no management organisations in place to regulate deep-sea fisheries.

And a report from the Marine Fish Conservation Network states that “although federal fishery managers have made some progress toward protecting essential habitat for fish populations, inadequate action has left many depleted fish populations ‘looking for love in all the wrong places’ because quality habitat is hard to find.”

The report found that fishery managers are leaving sensitive habitat areas open to severe damage by destructive fishing gear, like bottom trawlers.

“We would like to see a mechanism whereby conservation and management measures are in place before any new fishery is begun or any fishery is expanded into a new area,” Cohen said. “[And] we would like to see greater use of marine protected areas as a management tool to conserve marine biodiversity, including fish stocks.”