ROME - at a UN meeting here this week, governments agreed to global action plans that will strengthen shark conservation and management, as well as require fishing nations to reduce the incidental killing of seabirds in ocean fisheries.
About 80 nations are attending the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's (FAO) consultation on fisheries, which is due to end later today. Negotiations on an international action plan to reduce the world's fishing fleet capacity and address massive subsidies to the fishing industry are still underway this afternoon.
"These global action plans represent significant first steps toward better management of escalating shark fisheries and reducing the unnecessary mortality of thousands of albatrosses and other seabirds caught in longline fisheries," said Michael Sutton, director of WWF's Endangered Seas Campaign.
"WWF is hoping to see equally strong action on the pressing issue of fishing fleet overcapacity," added Mr. Sutton. "It's past time for governments to tackle the fact that there are too many boats chasing too few fish, and begin t reduce their subsidies to the fishing industry. These issues are at the heart of the present fisheries crisis.
For the first time, the International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of sharks will require nations to assess the number of sharks caught, both directly and non-directly in fisheries. To date, most of these catches are unrecorded. The agreement calls for the development of comprehensive national plans of action for sharks and related species such as skates and rays by the year 2001. These national plans aim to ensure that all shark catch is sustainable, protects marine biodiversity and minimizes waste, such as shark finning.
Each year, hundreds of thousands of seabirds, such as petrels, gulls and endangered albatrosses, are victims of longline fisheries, which deploy thousands of hooks on up to 60 km lines to catch tuna, swordfish and other species. Under the new International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries, nations would be required to undertake measures to avoid incidental catches of seabirds. They would also be responsible for developing national plans and assessing the progress on mitigation measures.
In both cases, the FAO will provide guidelines on how to achieve the stated goals in the shark and seabird global action plans. "If these plans are implemented appropriately and given the necessary resources, they will ensure the longterm conservation of these animals," said Andy Oliver, Senior Programme Officer for Fisheries Conservation at WWF-US, and a member of the US delegation at the meeting.
The draft action plans discussed this week are the result of two years of technical consultations and are expected to be adopted by the FAO Committee on Fisheries in February next year.
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For more information, please contact Someshwar Singh at WWF International at (41) 22-364-9553 or the Endangered Seas Campaign at (44) 1483-419-294.
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