The issue
There are increasingly significant signs of
social stress and conflict over the access to and
allocation of fisheries resources and - considering
the forecast increase in demand for fish and
fishery products in the next decades and the limits
on natural productivity as we now know it -
maintaining the contribution of fisheries to
food security is of both short- and medium-term
concern. Essentially all fishing areas of the world
are confronted with the major problems of (i)
overfishing and (ii) poor economic performance of
some, if not most, of their fisheries, and there
are many instances of excessive fishing capacity,
frequently fuelled by subsidies.
Despite their importance for employment, food
security, and poverty alleviation in poor rural
coastal areas and, particularly in low-income
food-deficit countries (LIFDCs), fisheries can no
longer be seen as providing either the ultimate and
limitless safety net for the unemployed or the
solution to such problems. Similarly, although
women and economically disadvantaged groups are
important target groups for development, their
involvement in the fisheries sector must take
account of the limited fisheries resources and the
ecological sustainability of the marine
environment.
Societal awareness - about the environmental
impacts of fishing gears and technologies (e.g.
driftnets, trawling, and destructive methods),
environmental modification (e.g.
aquaculture-related damage to mangroves), and the
impact of global environmental degradation on
fisheries - has raised concerns about the ways in
which seafood is produced or procured, its quality,
and the health effects of consuming it. Society is
also increasingly demanding higher standards of
resource stewardship from users and managers alike
by requiring greater transparency and
accountability even while the capacity of fishery
bodies is still insufficient for effecting
management or for fully implementing the new
international instruments, particularly at
regional levels. Many fisheries bodies are still
simply advisory, have weak decision-making rules,
and lack sufficient resources. Finally, the diverse
demands of fisheries management are being
exacerbated by the continuously changing and
broadening societal expectations and requirements
such as ecosystem approaches to fisheries
management (even though we have an incomplete
understanding of ecosystems) and the high levels of
uncertainty associated with our knowledge of
aquatic ecosystems, their natural variations, and
their resilience to fishing.
Possible solutions
The key source of problems is the inadequacy of
many systems of use- and access rights for
fisheries resources. Operating under the principle
of free and open access simply does not ensure the
sustainability of these resources, yet this is how
a large number of fisheries are still managed. To
make matters worse, the process of instituting more
explicit access rights and thereby allocating the
opportunity to use fisheries resources more
precisely requires making policy decisions that
have potentially enormous political and financial
costs and, hence, many governments encounter great
difficulties when even considering implementing the
change required. Furthermore, politically
unpalatable transitions to more effective fisheries
management are made even more difficult by
inadequate institutional frameworks (in terms of
outdated laws and regulations, poor information
flows, and limited stakeholder participation); weak
decision-making mechanisms; and a general lack of
integration of sectoral development policies
To help improve the overall nature of fisheries
and aquaculture policy, countries should look to
the comprehensive foundation provided by the FAO
Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, the
guidelines for its implementation, and the
overarching need for adopting a precautionary
approach to the use of fisheries resources. All
relevant countries, particularly the most important
fishing and coastal nations, should ratify the new
international instruments adopted during the 1990s
to further strengthen the global fisheries
institutional framework. Countries should also
effectively increase their commitment to improving
the situation by improving the national and
regional frameworks, strengthening regional fishery
commissions, and increasing their collaboration
with regional environmental commissions.
Governance-supporting strategies - such as
increased transparency, due process, the use of
participatory management strategies (e.g.
co-management, community-based management
strategies) to ensure greater stakeholder
participation and devolution of responsibility -
need to be designed and implemented. Similarly,
management-support tools such as the use of
indicators of sustainable development should
be used to identify problem areas and sources of
pressures, facilitate corrective responses, and
help monitor progress towards a better state of the
world's fisheries resources.
Ultimately, the basic solution to the problems
of fisheries governance will require setting up
management systems that clarify and more fully
define access rights, including those for
traditional fishing communities and others who may
be excluded from fisheries. These management
systems will also need to be designed so that they
limit catches while creating positive incentives to
limit capacity and to capture the benefits of
technological innovation (e.g. use of improved
gears, post harvest and processing practices and
value-adding strategies for utilizing allowable
harvests more efficiently). Where appropriate,
systems of quantitative and transferable quotas -
such as those allocated to communities or
individuals - need to be put in place. Finally,
these new management systems will have to
explicitly address the issue of payment for the
privilege to use the world's fisheries resources
for private gain.
Action taken
There have been a number of positive
achievements in the fisheries sector. Since the
early 1950s, fisheries development policies
and trade have led to an increasing amount of fish
supplied as food on a per capita basis despite
concomitant increases in population. During the
last two to three decades, fisheries have become a
major source of income and foreign exchange for
many coastal developing countries. New legislation
has been put in place including improving the
sustainability of marine aquaculture, particularly
close to mangroves. Aquaculture has contributed to
increasing the supply of fish and helping lower
prices. Societal awareness of fisheries resources
and of the impacts of fishing activities on the
environment continues to increase. The
precautionary approach to fisheries
management is now part of many management
strategies. Systems of indicators intended to
support the concept of ecologically sustainable
development have been designed and are being
tested. The fisheries policy framework has
significantly improved with the entry into force of
the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of
the Sea, the 1993 FAO Compliance
Agreement, the 1995 UN Fish Stocks
Agreement and the 1995 FAO Code of Conduct.
Additionally, a number of new fisheries commissions
have been established, thereby putting practically
all the world resources, including in the high
seas, under some sort of management framework.
Members to FAO are showing a greater awareness of
fisheries issues and a commitment to act to resolve
them both with International Plans of Action
(IPOAs - on capacity, sharks, bycatch of birds,
illegal fishing) endorsed by the FAO Committee on
Fisheries and with requests for radical
improvements to national fisheries policies and
legislation.
Outlook
The high attention given to fisheries by the
international media will keep a high level the
pressure on management authorities to improve the
situation. The rapid increase in awareness about
the role of access rights and of the experience and
competence in implementing them and the likely
further development of ecolabelling are positive
factors in the quest for a more sustainable
contribution of fisheries to human sustainable
development. However, the opportunities resulting
from globalization and increasing trade also
increase the risk to sustainability wherever
management capacity is generally insufficient and,
especially, in the developing world. Faster
progress should therefore be expected in the
developed world, where transition costs might be
bearable and capacity sufficient. However,
surprises may come out of the developing world
where, sometimes, the capacity to change may be
higher.
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