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Fisheries operate in very extensive, complex,
and interconnected aquatic ecosystems with
important natural fluctuations and possible
long-term man-induced trends. The functioning of
the ecosystems is only partially understood. The
various impacts of human activities, including
fishing, and their potential reversibility are not
completely understood. With a few exceptions, the
information available on the fisheries themselves
is poor and often biased. As a consequence,
decisions related to fisheries development
planning, management and conservation are made in a
context of widespread uncertainty with potentially
negative and possibly irreversible consequences for
the resource, the environment and the people.
Forecasts being uncertain, preventive action may
not always be possible. Some impacts being
potentially irreversible, corrective action may
also be sometimes impossible. As a result,
increased precaution is required. The conventional
fishery management toolbox has always contained a
number of "precautionary" elements allowing action
to be taken, in case of risk to the resources,
before enough scientific data was available.
Unfortunately, during the last fifty years, these
elements have been either scarcely used or poorly
enforced.
International instruments
In order to reduce risk, the adoption and
implementation of the precautionary approach is
requested in a number of international instruments
of importance to fisheries, inter alia:
- Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration of the
UN Conference on Environment and Development
(Rio de Janeiro, 1992) which states that "In
order to protect the environment, the
precautionary approach shall be widely applied
by States according to their capabilities. Where
there are threats of serious or irreversible
damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall
be not used as a reason for postponing
cost-effective measures to prevent environmental
degradation".
- The General Principles and Article 6.5 of
the 1995 FAO International Code of Conduct for
Responsible Fisheries which prescribe a
precautionary approach to all fisheries, in all
aquatic systems, and regardless of their
jurisdictional nature, recognizing that most
problems affecting fisheries result from
insufficiency of precaution in management
regimes when faced with the high levels of
uncertainty encountered in fisheries.
- The 1995 United Nations Fish Stock Agreement
which developed a consensus on the need to
introduce or strengthen the precautionary
approach to fishery management, imbedding the
concept in the draft text of its outcome, and
outlining elements for its implementation.
As uncertainty affects all elements of the
fishery system in varying degrees, some degree of
precaution is required at all levels of the system:
in development planning, management, research,
technology development and transfer, legal and
institutional frameworks, fish capture and
processing, fisheries enhancement and
aquaculture.
A review of the precautionary approach
FAO took the lead by reviewing the implications
of the precautionary approach for fisheries and
imbedding the approach in the Code of Conduct and
promoting its integration in the New York Fish
Stock Agreement. FAO also developed, in
collaboration with Sweden, technical guidelines for
the precautionary approach to capture fisheries
and species introduction, in support of the
implementation of the Code of Conduct (FAO, 1996).
The precautionary approach adopted recognizes
that:
- all fishing activities have significant
impacts;
- fisheries impacts are not negligible unless
proved otherwise;
- the complex and changing fishery system will
never be perfectly understood;
- scientific advice for management is
therefore always affected by uncertainty;
- management decision processes and sector's
compliance add their own uncertainties;
- impacts of fisheries on the system are
therefore difficult to predict accurately;
and
- consequences of management errors may be
only slowly reversible.
As a consequence, and recognizing that the
conduct of fisheries requires that decisions are
still made with incomplete knowledge, the approach
requires inter alia that:
- a level of precaution commensurate to risk
be applied at all times to all fisheries;
- it be applied systematically, i.e. in
research, management and fishing
operations;
- potentially irreversible changes be avoided
(to maintain options for future
generations);
- undesirable outcomes be anticipated and
measures be taken to reduce their
likelihood;
- corrective measures be applied immediately
and be effective within an acceptable time;
- priority be given to conserving the
productive capacity of the resource;
- precautionary limits be put on fishing
capacity on highly uncertain resources;
- all fishing activities be subjected to prior
authorization and periodic review;
- the burden of proof be appropriately
(realistically) placed;
- standards of proof commensurate with the
potential risk to the resource be established;
and
- the approach is formalized in a
comprehensive legal and institutional
framework.
The precautionary approach has now been widely
adopted by a number of fishery bodies (CCMALR,
IPHC, IWC, ICES, NAFO, NASCO, ICCAT, MHLC, SEAFO),
and its implementation is actively discussed in
some others (APFIC, WECAF, GFCM) and advancing
rapidly in ICES. The approach has also been
indirectly applied by ITLOS in relation to the
South Pacific Bluefin tuna case. It is also
advancing rapidly in a few countries (e.g. USA,
Canada, Australia, South Africa). In all these
cases, the precautionary approach has been largely
confined to its biological elements and a more
balanced application needs to address social and
economic risks as well.
In fisheries, the practical implementation of
the precautionary approach has progressed faster
than in any other management framework. In
addition, the representations needed (e.g.
indicators and reference points) are also used in
the sustainable development reference systems
(SDRS) proposed by FAO for fisheries. The
combination of the two concepts and their active
implementation by regional fishery bodies represent
a major change in the global fisheries management
landscape with potentially significant implications
for the resources and the sector. The outcome of
the ongoing efforts has been:
- determination of limit reference points
materializing biological constraints and minimum
requirements for sustainability;
- determination of thresholds (or "buffers")
to ensure that the limits are not accidentally
violated;
- improved methodology to evaluate uncertainty
and the risk attached to it;
- elaboration and evaluation of precautionary
harvest control rules and assessment of their
robustness;
- the elaboration of rebuilding strategies and
plans (and special control rules) for overfished
stocks;
- incorporation of uncertainty about the state
of stocks into management scenarios;
- improved communication between scientists
and managers as to explicit uncertainty
consideration and their impact;
- more explicit statement of objectives by
policy-makers as a basis for establishing target
reference points;
- development, adoption and implementation of
precautionary fisheries management plans;
and
- implementation of recovery plans for
depleted resources.
More effort is needed to foster progress. As the
subject is of utmost importance it seems likely
that additional resources will be assigned and used
for:
- identification, analysis, systematic
organisation and formal adoption of a limited
number of reference points covering the
ecosystem, economic, institutional and other
social aspects;
- further identification of related sources of
uncertainty and their impact in terms of risk;
including for the human component of the fishery
system;
- explicit relation of reference points to
objectives of fisheries management and
development policies as well as constraints
imposed by the ecosystems and human
well-being;
- appropriate co-representation of reference
points as a means to convey in as simple a way
as possible the issues, trade-offs,
alternatives, etc., to the managers, industry,
and the public;
- systematic analysis of the robustness of
management strategies and processes to
uncertainty.
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