41. The regional synthesis report was prepared on the basis of, and following the same structure as, the country reports. The three principal themes relating to legal, trade and fishery management issues were presented to the working group. The group worked through the report, which was revised on the basis of the various comments and corrections made. The Revised Version was adopted.
42. The common fishery management issues, drawn from the country reports, are presented in the synthesis report. Four broad issues were presented to the group. These were:
1. Integrating fisheries into coastal area management.For each issue, some initial suggestions were made for policy action. These suggestions were discussed in, and developed by, the sub-group on fishery management.
2. The broad area of fisheries management was broken into 5 sub-areas:
- Shared stocks
- Capacity control and management
- Fishery management planning
- Nature of fishery management systems
- Fishery management and research
3. The broad area of socio-economics was broken into 3 sub-areas:
- The macroeconomic role of the fisheries sector
- Assessing the benefits and consequences of fisheries management
- Socio-economic research
4. Possible conflicts between SADC Treaty obligations and fisheries management
43. In the discussion that followed, it was drawn to the attention of the workshop that there were FAO International plans of action on excess fishing capacity, Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing and shark management which placed monitoring and management requirements upon FAO members. One country pointed out that it had special provisions to grant fishing rights to other SADC member states and drew attention that such considerations would have to be conditional to the owners and crew being SADC nationals. Training of fisheries management personnel, management of artisanal fisheries were raised as priorities that needed to be included. Some initiatives such as the SADC East Coast Large Marine Ecosystem proposal and that of an LME proposed by Mozambique should be reinforced, not duplicated. It was also drawn to the meetings attention that international legal instruments required SADC member states to discuss the management of shared stocks within SADC as well as with non-SADC states.
