Commitments to sustainable fisheries: Empty words or reality?

Geir Huse,Åsmund Bjordal,Harald Loeng,Kari Østervold Toft,Reidar Toresen

doi:10.1016/j.marpol.2020.104360

Abstract

The Our Ocean conferences focus on voluntary commitments by different pledgers in support of actions towards a clean, healthy and productive ocean. We analysed the content and summarised the progress of implementation of the commitments related to sustainable fisheries at the Our Ocean conferences during 2014–2018. A total of 77 different entities provided commitments. Governments was the largest group (34) followed by NGOs (23). The majority (58%) of commitments were related to enforcement, transparency and cooperation. In particular, combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries and support for the port state measures process were the focus of many of the commitments. To increase transparency and effectiveness of commitments, we suggest that more emphasis should be put on documenting and evaluating the impact of commitments. There is good progress in the implementation, and the commitments are largely reality and not empty words. We consider that the commitments have been successful in terms of generating attention and providing funding of projects that are supportive of sustainable fisheries. The diversity of pledgers is large, and an objective gap analysis on requirements for achieving sustainable fisheries regionally could provide pledgers with common ground and further increase the impact of the Our Ocean conferences.

Highlights

The world’s marine capture fish landings plateaued at about 85 million tonnes in the 1990s and have not increased since [1]
The present analysis shows that there is a high degree of completion of the commitments to sustainable fisheries made at the Our Ocean conferences
A large majority of the commitments within Our Ocean have been implemented while some recent commitments remain to be finalized

Summary

Introduction

The world’s marine capture fish landings plateaued at about 85 million tonnes in the 1990s and have not increased since [1]. Largely in developing countries, rely on seafood as their primary source of animal protein. Millions of jobs around the world depend on fisheries, aquaculture and their global markets. Seafood is one of the most traded food commodities in the world [1], and an in tegral part of many people’s livelihoods. There is a trend towards an increase in the proportion of overfished stocks globally [1]. The per centage of overfished fish stocks was recently estimated to be 34%, while 66% of fish stocks are fished sustainably [1]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion