International cooperation in fisheries does not constitute a recent and novel development in the history of relations among nations. Already in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries several treaties were concluded with a view to solving, among other things, problems which, at that time, were mainly related to fishing rights, the safety of fishing vessels, rescue operations, and access to foreign ports. However, it was not until the twentieth century that States found it necessary to conclude international agreements to deal more specifically with development and management of living marine resources through the establishment of permanent regulatory bodies or similar mechanisms.
With the exception of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), established in 1902, the first multilateral agreements setting up fishery bodies were concluded after the Second World War. In 1946, seventeen countries signed the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling. At its first sessions in 1946 and 1947, the FAO Conference, with vision and realism for the potential role living aquatic resources could play in international cooperation and in socio-economic development at global and regional levels, recommended that the Organization should take action to initiate the formation of regional fishery bodies and listed the sea areas that should be given preference.
The Indo-Pacific Fisheries Council, now Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission (APFIC), was the first regional fishery body set up in 1948 under the FAO Constitution. Thereafter, several other regional bodies were established both within and outside the framework of FAO.
Having been created at a time when the international community was recovering from the ravages of the War, the formative years of APFIC were of great uncertainty but this dynamic Commission adapted to the changes with a sense of pragmatism. The structure and functions of the Commission were reviewed constantly, as the need arose, taking account of the fundamental changes that took place in world fisheries and in particular in the area covered by the Commission.
As APFIC moves into the second half of its first century, giving effect to the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and other recently-adopted international instruments related to fisheries is the major challenge its members will face in their efforts to secure long-term sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. The political will to take steps to accept and implement these instruments, to consolidate regional cooperation, to implement and enforce decisions taken at regional level, to adopt well-conceived national policies, and to take action to operationalize those policies, is fundamental to facilitating the required structural change in the fisheries and aquaculture sectors.
APFIC is, in many respects a microcosm of the family of regional fishery arrangements, particularly FAO regional fishery bodies. The publication of the present document is not only timely; it is a fitting tribute to the long and distinguished role that the Commission has played in Asian fisheries as well as to the great effort of governments and individuals who have made that possible.
Moritaka Hayashi
Assistant Director-General
Fisheries Department
FAO, Rome
