The two day conference entitled “International Conference on Global Trends in Fisheries Governance” organised by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management aimed at underlining and to discuss important components within fisheries governance with the aim to propose actions for improved food security and sustainable fisheries on a global level.
The first section of the conference took a deeper look into the opportunities and challenges within future management of global fisheries and aquaculture. Where some of the key challenges identified where: i) managing the demand of fish, ii) solving overcapacity within fisheries, iii) the need for transparency and iv) involving all stakeholder in the process.
The question of how to involve all parties in the process was discussed where transparency came up as a key element not only as a mean to enable parties to come together but also a crucial component for co-management. Fisheries information needs to be easily accessible to all as a tool to improve cooperation between scientist, fisheries and governments and thus lead to better management. Transparency is also needed in terms of bilateral agreements, on access agreements particularly between EU and developing countries. Isabella Lövin, Members of the European Parliament, pointed out that fish is a common resource belonging to us all and thus there should be no business secrets of fishing contracts with developing countries – these contracts should be in the public domain.
Magnus Kindblom, State Secretary at the Swedish Ministry for Rural Affairs, laid out the Swedish priorities under the external dimensions of the CFP with key elements such as human rights, democracy and the surplus clause and highlighted the need to stay alert on the details under the coming implementation face.
Focus was later turned towards the challenges and opportunities which lay within international and regional management organisations to improve global sustainability. Ernesto Jardin, Senior Fisheries Scientist at the European Commission Joint Research Centre stressed the need to include surplus into management plans. He pointed that it’s a complex process as there are large uncertainties connected to management plans, but nevertheless an important step forward.
There was a heated discussion whether more policies is needed or not. Jake Rice, Chief Scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada argued that we no new polices where needed instead if we actually implemented the policies that already exists today we would be far ahead. Niels Krabbe, legal adviser at the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management , on the other hand stressed that the current legislation is subjected to important loop holes that would need to be corrected and thus a need for new policies to cover these up. Rebecca Metzner, Senior Fishery analyst at FAO pointed to the need of new policies which would support small scale fisheries to secure access.
The last session of the conference dealt mainly with regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs). RFMOs cover all bodies of water but it is evident that we have a problem with compliance to the RFMOs rules. Kristoffer Du Rietz Foreign Affairs advisor at DG MARE argued that RFMOs could work better if other groups other than scientists, fisheries etc such as development organisations would be invited as this would allow for a more holistic and resilient constellation.
The conference summarised in a few words; the need for transparency, inclusion of surplus into management plans, involvement of all stakeholder groups and improving RFMOs.