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Two experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) visited Ecuador from 2–5 December to engage with the Subsecretariat of Fisheries Resources, in Manta.

The mission, held through the European Union funded Sixth PSMA Global Capacity Development Programme Support Project, sought to support the country in implementing traceability of fishery products, ensuring the legal origin of the fish caught, in line with provisions of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) and complementary international instruments to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

During the mission, FAO experts supported the government of Ecuador in reviewing the country’s legal framework for traceability and assisted it in assessing its technical implementation. FAO experts could also observe control measures established in different critical tracking events of the fisheries value chain and to this aim, the mission included a port visit to evaluate the control of landings of national fleet and a processing plant to study the internal traceability systems that track fish back to their origin.

FAO experts contributed to discussions and proposals for improvements to the current traceability system and related legal frameworks for consideration by the national authorities.