In this paper, authors developed an innovative approach that would support members of tuna regional fisheries management organisations (tRMFOs) to reduce placing a disproportionate burden on developing state members.
In this paper, authors analysed the conservation and management measures of RFMOs that include exemptions from catch, effort and capacity limits and found that they are used most commonly in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission. They argue that the use of exemptions due to the failure of RFMOs to adopt equitable allocation frameworks has the potential to negatively impact marine resources and their development opportunities. Instead, alternatives, such as equitable allocations of science-based catch and effort limits, transferability and phased adjustments, should be developed.
The study, led by Katy Seto and published in Science Advances, found that squid fishing vessels fished largely (86%) in unregulated areas, equating to 4.4 million total hours of fishing time between 2017-2020. While unregulated fishing is not necessarily illegal, it presents challenges for fisheries sustainability and resource equity, and has been connected to questionable human rights and labor practices.
Tuna regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) have long suffered from the domination of distant water fishing nations (DWFNs) in decision-making processes. The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) is no exception. In recent years, coastal states of the Indian Ocean (IO) have tried to change this dynamic – led by countries like the Maldives, Kenya, South Africa, and Australia – to deliver greater benefits to the region, including East Africa.
Climate change is predicted to alter the distributions of tropical tuna stocks in the Pacific Ocean. Recent modelling projects significant future shifts in tuna biomass from west to east, and from national jurisdictions to high seas areas. As the distributions of these stocks change, the relevant regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs)—the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) and the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission (IATTC)—will need to develop an expanded framework for cooperation and collaboration to fulfil their conservation and management responsibilities under international law.
With a new international agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement) on the horizon, now is the time to start laying the foundation for successful implementation. This paper provides some initial reflections for supporting rapid, effective, and equitable implementation of the BBNJ Agreement in three priority areas
Climate-driven redistribution of tuna threatens to disrupt the economies of Pacific Small Island Developing States (SIDS) and sustainable management of the world’s largest tuna fishery.
Capacity development is a major priority in the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (the Decade). Persistent disparities in ocean science capacity illustrate the substantial challenges to achieving the Decade’s stated goal of eradicating inequality.
The focus on flag States for the purpose of attributing fisheries catch is inconsistent with the assignment of sovereign rights to coastal States under international law and undermines equity in contemporary quota allocation negotiations.
Few States are able to undertake scientific research in the half of the planet that lies in marine areas beyond national jurisdiction. Capacity building is therefore a key part of the development of a new international legally binding instrument for the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (BBNJ Agreement).
Harmful fisheries subsidies have historically contributed to fleet overcapacity and continue to be allocated to the fishing industry to artificially maintain its profitability.
International and regional organisations promote transparency on the basis that it can improve the sustainability of fisheries, yet the processes involved, and the outcomes of transparency initiatives, are often opaque and misunderstood.
The focus on flag States for the purpose of attributing fisheries catch is inconsistent with the assignment of sovereign rights to coastal States under international law and undermines equity in contemporary quota allocation negotiations.
Globally, fisheries continue to face a range of pressures that can be addressed by more effective national, regional, and international fisheries governance.
The pelagic fisheries beyond the continental shelves are currently managed with a range of tools largely based on regulating effort or target catch.
The Korean tuna fishing fleet has a long history of participation in the tuna fisheries of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (wcpo), the largest tuna fisheries in the world.
Fisheries for highly migratory fish stocks are complex, featuring multiple species targeted by different gear types across several national jurisdictions and high seas areas. They require effective cooperation to manage sustainably, typically through a regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO).
The UN Law of the Sea Convention (LOSC) and one of the implementing agreements of the Convention—the UN Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA)—mandates all states to cooperate in the management of highly migratory and straddling fish stocks.
In 2020 the management of transboundary fisheries was severely impacted by the global COVID-19 pandemic. Most annual meetings of regional fisheries and marine management organizations were held virtually, postponed, or cancelled.
The global COVID-19 pandemic is impacting on the fisheries sector and posing significant challenges for the management of transboundary fisheries. Due to travel bans and border closures, regional organizations are not able to hold face-to-face meetings.
Resource allocation is a fundamental and challenging component of common pool resource governance, particularly transboundary fisheries. We highlight the growing importance of allocation in fisheries governance, comparing approaches of the five tuna Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (tRFMOs).
Large-scale marine protected areas (LSMPAs) have proliferated in recent years, now accounting for most of the world’s MPA coverage
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing threatens resource sustainability and equity. A major challenge with such activity is that most fishing vessels do not broadcast their positions and are “dark” in public monitoring systems.
The definition of large-scale marine protected areas in the Pacific Ocean is fundamental to the achievement of global marine conservation targets.
Shark attack’ presents a considerable social-environmental challenge. Each year a small number of people are injured or killed by shark bite.
This article describes the proliferation of drifting fish aggregating devices (FADs) and analyses subsequent legal questions that arise for fisheries and marine litter management over who is responsible for FADs during their drifting stage.
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (losc) established the
broad framework for the conduct of distant water fishing.
Fish aggregating devices (FADs) have over recent decades, become an integral tool in commercial tuna fisheries due to their increased efficiency over free school catches.
Multilateral consensus forged among heads of states must be value-additive and relevant at the national level to facilitate on-ground implementation.
In PNAS, McDermott et al. (1) analyze a 2014–2016 central Pacific fishing surge, focusing on the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA) inside the Kiribati exclusive economic zone (EEZ)
Developing enduring capacity to monitor ocean life requires investing in people and their institutions to build infrastructure, ownership, and long-term support networks.
Achieving the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) results in many ecological, social, and economic consequences that are inter-related.
Conservation and Management Measure for Tropical Tunas
To meet some of the UN’s seventeen Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, there is a need for more effective policy to reduce food insecurity in low-income and lower-middle-income countries (LMIC).
Climate and weather have profound effects on economies, the food security and livelihoods of communities throughout the Pacific Island region.
Marine ecosystems play a central role in economic and social life in the Republic of Palau, a Small Island Developing State in the Western Pacific.
A New Song for Coastal Fisheries, a strategy and roadmap produced through a participatory workshop facilitated by the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, calls upon Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) to ensure strong and up-to-date management policy, legislation, and planning for coastal fisheries.
In several Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs), rapid population growth and inadequate management of coastal fish habitats and stocks is causing a gap to emerge between the amount of fish recommended for good nutrition and sustainable harvests from coastal fisheries.
For Pacific Island communities, social change has always been a part of their socio-political lives, while environmental changes were always transient and reversible, so that they understood and engaged with their ocean as a provider for food, culture and life.
The Pacific Arc of islands and archipelagos to the north and east of Australia has been characterised both as an ‘arc of instability’ and as an ‘arc of opportunity’.
In the Pacific Islands region, fisheries and aquaculture make vital contributions to economic development, government revenue, food security and livelihoods.
The international legal framework for fisheries governance requires that conservation and management measures for transboundary fish stocks do not place a disproportionate burden on developing States.
In this article we examine how Pacific Island Countries (pics) successfully championed a stand-alone Ocean Sustainable Development Goal (sdg) goal at the United Nations (un).
Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) face a double burden of disease, with a high prevalence of household food insecurity and childhood micronutrient deficiencies, accompanied by a burgeoning increase in adult obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
Fish are a significant food source for Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs), but current projections indicate future supply shortfalls and distribution gaps in some PICTs.
Conflicts over the equitability of transboundary natural resource conservation and management schemes have created barriers to effective policy implementation and practice.
It is widely recognised that anchored, nearshore fish aggregating devices (FADs) are one of the few practical ‘vehicles’ for increasing access to tuna to help feed the rapidly growing rural and urban populations in many Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs).
The large tuna resources of the Western and Central Pacific Ocean are delivering great economic benefits to Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) through sale of licences to distant water fishing nations and employment in fish processing.
Conservation and management of transboundary fisheries must account for diverse national interests while adopting compromises necessary to develop and implement robust conservation and management measures.
Much of the current literature on ecosystem based approaches to fisheries management
focuses on the ecosystem impacts of fishing activities, and requirements to develop
management plans that look beyond just target stocks.
The Pacific islands region has developed a collaborative approach to fisheries management that has set global precedents in regional fisheries co-operation and significantly boosted Islanders’ capacity to manage the region’s tuna fisheries in a manner consistent with their individual national interests.
Developments in fisheries governance in recent decades—notably the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and its implementing agreements—have established a framework of principles, standards, institutions and regulations that is broader and more complex than traditional fisheries management, which has generally focused on individual target species.
While it is the case that the boundaries of national jurisdiction over land territory
are well established and relatively stable or, at the least, the contours of extant
and often longstanding territorial disputes are well defined, the same does not
hold true offshore.
The Western and Central Pacific Ocean (WCPO) stretches approximately
6,000 nautical miles across numerous jurisdictions, from the archipelagos
of Southeast Asia to the remote atolls of Kiribati in the Central Pacific.
A checklist is provided for monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) actions to be applied in the areal-based management of marine fisheries and attached biodiversity conservation needs.
Determining the distribution of the conservation burden and benefit is a critical challenge to the conservation and management of trans-boundary fish stocks.
The Western and Central Pacific Ocean is home to the world’s most productive tuna fisheries, with the majority of tuna catches occurring inside the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of the region’s developing coastal States.
Devoted to assessing the state of ocean and coastal governance, knowledge, and management, the Ocean Yearbook Online provides information in one convenient resource.
International fisheries governance contains no specific provisions detailing States’ rights and obligations in respect of fisheries in maritime zones classified as falling under the sovereignty of coastal States, namely: internal waters, archipelagic waters and territorial seas.
International fisheries governance contains no specific provisions detailing States’ rights and obligations in respect of fisheries in maritime zones classified as falling under the sovereignty of coastal States, namely: internal waters, archipelagic waters and territorial seas.
The sustainable management and profitable development of the Pacific island tuna fisheries is the key ocean governance challenge for the Pacific islands region in the short and medium term.
The Pacific Islands region includes some of the smallest countries in the world, some of which are in a precarious economic condition and heavily reliant on the region’s tuna fisheries for revenue and food security.
) Navigating Pacific Fisheries: Legal and Policy Trends in the Implementation of International Fisheries Instruments in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.
The State of Marine Fisheries. A Commonwealth Perspective. Commonwealth Foundation. London.
Legal and Policy Trends in the Implementation of International Fisheries Instruments in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean.