FAO advises the Global Fishery Forum on how to deal with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is estimated to illicitly harvest as much as 26 million tons of fish each year, worth approximately USD 24 billion.

An expert-level discussion on the dangers IUU-fishing poses took place at the Second Global Fishery Forum. The issue is not confined to the threat to effective preservation and sustainable use of fish stock. IUU- fishing contributes to degradation of fish stocks and undermines efforts to restore depleted resources. It leads to commercial losses, affecting both direct income from fish trade and employment opportunities.

In his presentation, Matthew Camilleri, FAO’s Senior Fishery Officer from the Fishing Operations and Technology Branch, spoke about the tools, mechanisms, and means available to Russia to combat IUU-fishing.

“Development and promotion of international standards to improve government policies for effective tracing of seafood through the value chain has been an important achievement in the fight against IUU-fishing,” Camilleri noted. “Success can be achieved through maintaining catch documentation and by monitoring fishing vessels at the regional and global levels.”

IUU-fishing can lead to the collapse of a fishery or seriously impair efforts to rebuild stocks that have already been depleted, the speakers pointed out. Existing international instruments addressing IUU-fishing have not been effective due to a lack of political will, priority, capacity and resources to ratify or accede to and implement them.

The participants of the discussion session concluded that to amplify actions by governments and for industry to mitigate safety and illegal fishing risks there is the undeniable prerequisite for the ratification of the 2012 Cape Town Agreement as well as rationale for stringent implementation of FAO’s Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (PSMA).

The Cape Town Agreement would enter into force once 22 States, with an aggregate fleet of 3,600 eligible fishing vessels, become parties to it. The Agreement, as underlined in report by The Pew Charitable Trusts, could also serve as a vehicle to mandate IMO numbers and automatic identification systems on fishing vessels, enabling states to accurately identify and track vessels, ultimately improving transparency and crew safety.

For Russia, joining the Cape Town Agreement “will ensure fair comeptition and safety standards for vessels”, Pyotr Savchuk, Deputy Director of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries, summed up the deliberations.

Saint Petersburg