INTRODUCTION

1. In complying with the mandate given by the FAO Governing Bodies (COFI, Council and Conference), the FAO Fisheries Department is promoting and monitoring the implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. The mandate also extends to addressing several related issues of international significance that have emerged in world fisheries (and aquaculture) and that concern such implementation.

2. At the Twenty-fourth Session¹ of GFCM, the Secretariat was requested to provide information on selected global issues carried out by FAO since the Twenty-third Session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI), in particular with regard to the implementation of the International Plans of Action (IPOAs) and to activities connected with illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, with a view to their application to GFCM. Information on other issues such as subsidies in fisheries, implementation of the precautionary approach and development of sustainability indicators, and objective and reliable fishery status and trends reporting are also provided in this document. These issues are interrelated to some degree and some of the issues will be considered by COFI at its Twenty-fourth Session, in February 2001.

MANAGEMENT OF FISHING CAPACITY

3. Excess fishing capacity is caused by inadequate control over fishers' access to fish stocks. Additionally, in some countries it is also brought about by public funding of investments in new vessels and/or the rehabilitation of old ones. Over-capacity generally expresses itself through excessive investments and an indiscriminate use of fishing inputs. Two manifestations of excess capacity are poor economic performance, or inefficiency, and biological over-fishing. Over-capitalization in capture fisheries wastes investment capital and therefore leads to high fishing costs. Similarly, overexploitation of stocks wastes fish resources for future generations.

4. A fundamental problem in addressing overcapacity is the lack of reliable data on the numbers and characteristics of craft and gear. Also important is the extent to which vessels may be moved between fisheries, as action taken to reduce capacity in one fishery or in one operational management unit may be the direct cause of overcapacity in another. On a regional scale, this does not constitute a reduction in capacity. There are also increasing cases of local conflicts arising over the fact that industrial vessels - which are usually those operating in several management units - operate in direct competition with artisanal fleets.

5. At its Twenty-second Session held in Rome in March 1997, the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI) welcomed the proposal to hold an FAO Technical Consultation on the Management of Fishing Capacity². The Consultation, which met in October 1998, resulted in an International Plan of Action (IPOA) for the Management of Fishing Capacity which was endorsed by the FAO Council in June 1999 following its approval by COFI.³

6. The implementation of the plan is voluntary. The Declaration issued by the Ministerial Meeting on the implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (Rome, 10-11 March 1999) called upon all concerned to give necessary priority, within the framework of national plans, to collaborate for an effective and integrated monitoring of fisheries management.

7. FAO's immediate work programme in this area includes providing Members with tools needed for the management of fishing capacity. Steps are being taken by FAO to provide support to the implementation of the IPOA and to address related issues. Major initiatives include :

� Technical Guidelines for the management of fishing capacity. These are being finalized.

� A Technical Consultation was organized from 29 November to 3 December 1999 in Mexico to address issues pertaining to the measurement of fishing capacity. Technical guidelines are now being prepared specifying methods and main options for measurement and monitoring of fishing capacity.

� A further strengthening of responsible fisheries and better management of fishing capacity in particular may require adjustments in fleet size, the relocation of fishers and, in the case of small-scale fisheries, the implementation of alternative or - complementary programmes. Work on this issue is being undertaken which will lead to the organization in 2001 of a FAO Expert Consultation on the Reduction of Fishing Capacity.

� As requested in the IPOA, FAO is also initiating work on the identification of factors contributing to over-capacity and unsustainability, such as lack of input and output controls.

� Unsustainable fishery management and factors which contribute to overcapacity. As a first step a study has been initiated which aims at the systematic identification of such factors and at reviewing their comparative theoretical impacts on sustainability.

� FAO will provide increased direct support to developing Member States for the promotion of sustainable fisheries in general and for the implementation of the IPOA in particular. As a first step, and with the financial assistance of Japan, FAO will organize during the biennium 2000/2001 three regional workshops, aimed at facilitating the implementation of the IPOA in selected developing countries.

8. The IPOA for the Management of Fishing Capacity stressed the importance of reliable fishery fleet statistics. In view of difficulties encountered in collecting global data on fishery fleets, FAO has recently revised and simplified the fishery fleet questionnaire, which has resulted in a better rate of returns from countries. It has also established a data base called the High Seas Vessels Authorization Record (HSVAR) which will be included in the Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS). Pending the entry into force of the Compliance Agreement⁴, countries are being requested to voluntarily provide data on their fleet following the scheme of Artile VI of the Compliance Agreement as provided for in the IPOA.

9. In the Mediterranean context, GFCM adopted, at its Twenty-first Session, Resolution 95/4 which called upon members to prepare a list of fishing boats operating from ports in the Mediterranean and requested the Secretariat to establish a common data base on existing fleets of fishing vessels operating outside national jurisdiction. COPEMED collaborated in 1997 and 1998 in gathering data on vessels over 15 m fishing in the Western Mediterranean but has now ceased this activity. At the Twenty-fourth Session of GFCM, the Resolution was recognized to be still valid, but not fully complied with. It was recognized that progress in implementation needs to be monitored.⁵ It was further noted that the implementation of this unfulfilled Resolution was essential for the work of the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and that the list of vessels should include artisanal vessels operating from each port in each sub-area.

10. Since its Twenty-third Session⁶, GFCM has, more specifically, commissioned SAC to undertake a number of activities that are closely related to assessing fishing capacity. To mention a few: the definition of appropriate geographical management units and operational management units; the definition of parameters to express fishing effort; the identification of socio-economic indicators; study on structure and fishing parameters of artisanal fisheries (for more details, see document GFCM/XXV/2000/2).

SUBSIDIES IN FISHERIES

11. Subsidies in fisheries could be one of the factors contributing to over-investment in fisheries as well as a cause for distortion in international trade. There is strong interest among member countries to understand better whether and how subsidies affect fisheries sustainability and fish trade. FAO has been called upon both by the FAO Sub-Committee on Fish Trade⁷ and through the IPOA for the Management of Fishing Capacity⁸ to examine and disseminate information on fishery subsidies, as a basis for further analysis.

12. FAO is preparing three studies concerning subsidies and fisheries. They are:

� a review of the concepts that have been used to define fisheries subsidies;

� a review of published assessments of public sector subsidies to the fishery sector and of their impact on sustainability of fishery resources; and

� a review of published assessments of public sector subsidies to the fishery sector and of their impact on trade of fish and fish products.

13. An expert consultation will be convened to review the three studies mentioned above and other relevant information on the issue of subsidies. The "FAO Expert Consultation on Economic Incentives and Responsible Fisheries" is scheduled to take place in Rome (FAO Headquarters) from 28 November to 1 December 2000. Cooperation with other relevant inter-governmental organizations, particularly, the World Trade Organization (WTO), has been sought.

14. The report of the Consultation will be submitted to the Twenty-fourth Session of COFI to be held from 26 February to 2 March 2001, for consideration and guidance on further work.

ILLEGAL, UNREGULATED AND UNREPORTED FISHING

15. Illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing is not a new phenomenon. It has been a source of concern for resource custodians since the earliest times when fishing communities first started to implement measures to conserve fish stocks. To a greater or lesser extent, IUU fishing is found in all capture fisheries (small-scale and industrial), irrespective of their location (marine and inland, in zones of national jurisdiction and on the high seas), species targeted, fishing gear employed or intensity of exploitation.

16. In any form, IUU fishing serves to undermine national and regional efforts to conserve and manage fish stocks. In cases where stocks are seriously depleted, IUU fishing will inhibit, if not prevent, the re-building of those stocks. Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing also leads to increased uncertainty in making responsible fisheries management decisions and in assessing the status of fish stocks.

17. IUU fishing was raised as an issue at the Twenty-third Session of COFI in February 1999 on the basis of a paper presented by Australia. The paper urged that an international plan of action to combat IUU fishing be developed. The issue was considered further by the FAO Ministerial Meeting on the Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, held in Rome, on 10 and 11 March 1999. The Ministers and their representatives issued a declaration. In this, they declared inter alia, that they will develop a global plan of action to deal effectively with all forms of illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, through coordinated efforts by States, FAO, regional fishery management bodies, and other relevant international agencies. The Ministers also requested that FAO coordinate its activities on IUU fishing with the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

18. Subsequently, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) in April 1999 considered IUU fishing and supported the decision of the ministers at their FAO meeting to give priority to the development of an IPOA. FAO also informed the UN Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Ocean Affairs of work being undertaken on IUU fishing when the Informal Consultative Process met in New York from 30 May to 2 June 2000.

19. In response to the request made by the FAO Ministerial Meeting, FAO submitted a paper to the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) of the IMO at its May 1999 Session as well as at the Sub-Committee on Flag State Implementation (FSI) at its Eighth Session in January 2000. The latter resulted in substantive outcome in that the Sub-Committee recommended that a joint FAO/IMO ad hoc Working Group be established. However, recognizing that there was a need for a policy decision on IUU fishing, FSI proposed that the matter be referred to parent Committees, the Marine Environment Protection Committee and MSC. Action to this end, in cooperation with a number of countries, is being taken.

20. Outside the UN System, IUU fishing is also being addressed in a number of international fora such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Fisheries Working Group (Japan, July 1999) and the International Conference on Monitoring Control and Surveillance, (Santiago, Chile, January 2000). The following are examples of regional fishery management bodies which are working on IUU fishing: the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), and the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC). Other fishery bodies are also in the process of addressing the issue.

21. There is a high degree of agreement that the following are some of the major issues that need to be addressed in order to combat IUU fishing:

� States should take action nationally in relation to their fisheries and related legislation.

� International fisheries instruments should be brought into force as a matter of priority, and States should focus more intensely on implementing the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and the recently concluded IPOAs, and in particular the IPOA for the Management of Fishing Capacity

� Flag States should enhance control over the operations of their fishing vessels as the crux of the problem lies in the lack of control over fishing vessels

� Port States measures should be invoked

� Regional fisheries management organizations should be strengthened

� Fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) should be enhanced

22. The outcome of the preliminary work undertaken by the FAO Fisheries Department⁹, was reviewed by an Expert Consultation on IUU fishing held in Sydney, Australia, from 15 to 19 May 2000. The Expert Consultation was hosted by Australia in collaboration with FAO. The meeting drafted an IPOA that will be considered by a Technical Consultation on IUU fishing to be held at FAO Headquarters, Rome, 2-6 October 2000. It is envisaged that the IPOA from the Technical Consultation will be passed to the Twenty-fourth Session of COFI in February 2001 for consideration and adoption.
23. IUU fishing is not a new issue in the GFCM context. It was, for example, addressed by the (former) Committee on Fisheries Management at its Ninth Session (Rome, October 1994) which stressed the need to take measures to make available information on fishing boats operating in the Mediterranean under flags of States which are not members of the GFCM and are not contracting States of ICCAT. In its Resolution No 95/2 adopted at its Twenty-first Session, GFCM expressed concern that there is no provision for vessels of non-coastal States that operate in the Mediterranean to report on their activities to the GFCM. It further requested all States without distinction, whose fishing vessels operate in international waters in the Mediterranean, to provide information on these vessels, as set out in Article VI of the Compliance Agreement, to the Secretariat of the GFCM. At the Twenty-third Session of GFCM, it was further suggested¹⁰ among priority action for a medium and long term work programme to develop a control scheme concerning, in particular, the activities of vessels fishing under flags of convenience in the Mediterranean. Lastly, at its Third Session, SAC noted that ICCAT had proposed various measures to diminish IUU fishing and requested the Commission to consider these measures¹¹.

PRECAUTIONARY APPROACH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT INDICATORS

24. Principle 15 of the Rio de Janeiro Declaration of the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, 1992) states that "In order to protect the environment the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation".

25. The General Principles (Article 6.5) of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, prescribe a precautionary approach to all fisheries, in all aquatic systems, and regardless of their jurisdictional nature, recognizing that most problems affecting the sector result from insufficiency of precaution in management regimes that are faced with high levels of uncertainty. Further, the 1995 United Nations Convention on Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks embedded the concept of the precautionary approach and outlined elements for its implementation.

26. Within these frameworks, the precautionary approach to fisheries recognizes that changes in fisheries systems are only slowly reversible, difficult to control, not well understood, and subject to changing environment and human values. Because uncertainty affects all elements of the fishery system, some degree of precaution is required at all levels of the system: in development planning, management, research, technology development and transfer, legal and institutional frameworks, fish capture and processing, fisheries enhancement and aquaculture.

27. The Technical Consultation on the Precautionary Approach to Capture Fisheries (including Species Introductions) which was organized by the Government of Sweden, in close co-operation with FAO (Lysekil, June 1995), produced technical guidelines for the Code of Conduct on the Precautionary approach. The guidelines stress, inter alia, the need:

� to consider the needs of future generations and avoidance of changes that are not potentially reversible;

� for prior identification of undesirable outcomes and of measures that will avoid them or correct them promptly;

� to give priority to conserving the productive capacity of the resource where the likely impact of resource use is uncertain;

� to ensure that harvesting and processing capacity are commensurate with estimated sustainable levels of resources, and that increases in capacity be further contained when resource productivity is highly uncertain; and

� to establish legal and institutional frameworks for fishery management, within which management plans are instituted for each fishery.

28. Toward contributing to sustainable fisheries, the precautionary approach implies setting agreed cost-effective measures and actions, including future courses of action, which ensures prudent foresight, reduces or avoid risk to the resource, the environment and the people. At the same time, while it is recognized that fishing is important to sustainable development, and that its contribution could be improved, the amount of objective scientific information about fishing remains limited and what exists is often difficult to access.

29. In relation to these requirements, a consensus arose recently on the need to develop fishery-specific sustainability indicators to assess and monitor the state of the sector and the performance of its governance against commonly agreed reference values. This will contribute to setting up sustainable development reference systems (SDRS) while acknowledging that the fisheries management paradigm, needs to be significantly broadened to match the principles of sustainable development. Because, the precautionary approach also requires the adoption of indicators and reference values (conventionally called target reference point and limit reference point) to determine areas or degrees of risk created by various sources of uncertainty, a tendency to merge operationally both concept of sustainability indicators and precautionary approach is developing. It is expected that formal systems of indicators, providing clear linkages between the outcomes and the objectives of fisheries management should improve awareness of management failure and help promote more effective management.

30. In this context, a Technical Consultation on Sustainability Indicators in Marine Capture Fisheries was organized, in Sydney, Australia, in January 1999, by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry of Australia (AFFA) and the FAO Fisheries Department. The Consultation produced technical guidelines to support the implementation of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and to provide decision and policy makers with a handy tool to operationalize sustainable development. In addition to these guidelines, the Consultation generated a set of scientific background papers, all related to the subject, including a thorough review of the issue of sustainability indicators, focusing on the implications for fisheries.

31. In line with UNCED principles, the guidelines recall the need for all nations to develop indicators of sustainable development for their fisheries that are consistent with international reporting commitments, and the need to share this information at the relevant national, regional and global levels. The guidelines further emphasize that indicators should provide a practicable and cost-effective means of : (a) tracking progress towards sustainable development; (b) predicting or warning about potential problems in the future; (c) learning by comparing performance between fisheries, and (d) information exchange policies aimed at advancing progress or avoiding problems. The guidelines also describe steps that should be followed in developing a system of indicators and minimum requirements for the type of information to be reported. The following requirements can also be noted:

� The need for properly selecting the geographical management "units" for which indicators will be reported. These units should reflect the geographic scale of ecological processes, fishery resources and fishing activity, and political jurisdictions. In some cases, units at a regional scale (either within a nation or for shared resources of several nations) will be more appropriate although it may be useful to also have indicators at finer scales (e.g. operational units, individual fisheries or sub-national regions).

� The need to ensure that all the interdependent components of the fisheries system are sustained. Indicators should reflect performance of the system in each component. Critical components are identified as being: (i) the ecosystem which includes the fishery resources that support the fishery and other aspects of ecosystems that control the productivity of the resource, including dependent and associated species; (ii) the economy which encompasses costs and benefits within the fishery, and monetary flows into and out of the fishery; (iii) the society, consisting of non-monetary costs and benefits which are important elements of human welfare; and (iv) governance which includes the institutions as well as the rules governing the system.

32. Furthermore, to interpret indicator changes, it is necessary to specify reference values (or reference points) that are either targets (indicating desirable states of the system and good performance) or thresholds to be avoided. To the extent possible, nations and regional and international fisheries organizations should strive for some common indicators for each component of a fisheries system that they share. This will be most practical for indicators of the status of fishery resources within the ecosystem component, and indicators of revenues and costs in the economy component for which generally agreed objectives and methodologies exist.

33. In the GFCM context, the implementation of the precautionary approach has been clearly acknowledged over recent years. For example, at its Twenty-third Session, delegations urged that the precautionary approach be implemented in order to protect biodiversity especially for marine vertebrates (including sharks)¹². The concept further supports much of the work being carried out by SAC and its subsidiaries. At its Second Session (Madrid, Spain 2000), the Sub-Committee for Stock Assessment stressed the need to establish biological reference points in order to improve fisheries management within a precautionary approach, while the Sub-Committee on Economics and Social Sciences reported on progress made toward identifying a set of socio-economic indicators which can be used in various GFCM management units.

34. The Commission is invited to take note of these developments and to consider how activities toward further identifying reference values on which sustainability indicators could be intensified.

CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT OF SHARKS

35. In recent decades advances in technology combined with access to distant markets have resulted in an increase in fishing effort targeting sharks, catch sizes and an expansion of the areas fished. This is endangering the sustainability of some shark resources in many areas because of the biological characteristics of sharks - their close stock-recruitment relationship, long recovery times when overfished and complex spatial population structure. To this must be added the poor state of knowledge of the biological parameters of many species, poor species identification and lack of available catch, effort, landings and trade data, and the recognition that few international management organizations are effectively addressing this issue.

36. At its Twenty-second Session in 1997, COFI noted these concerns and asked FAO to organize an expert consultation to develop guidelines for improving the conservation of sharks. A draft IPOA on Conservation and Management of Sharks was developed by a Technical Working Group in April 1998 in Tokyo and finalized by the subsequent Technical Consultation on Management of Fishing Capacity, Shark Fisheries and Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries, in Rome in October 1998. The Plan of Action which has been elaborated within the framework of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries was submitted to COFI at its Twenty-third Session in 1999.

37. The Plan of Action encompasses both target and non-target catches. While recognizing that in some regions and/or countries, shark catches are a traditional and important source of food, employment and/or income to local communities, the objective of the Plan includes the long-term use of sharks through keeping total fishing mortality for each stock within sustainable levels by applying the precautionary approach. The Plan applies in particular to States in whose waters sharks are caught and to States whose vessels catch sharks on the high seas. States are invited to elaborate national plans of action for conservation and management of shark stocks if their vessels target sharks or if their vessels regularly catch sharks in non-directed fisheries.

38. Responsible conservation and management of sharks entails in particular :

� assessing threats to shark populations and minimizing waste and discards from shark catches;

� protecting critical habitats and implementing harvesting strategies consistent with the principles of biological sustainability and rational long-term economic use;

� developing frameworks for establishing and coordinating consultation among researcher, management and educational initiatives; and

� improving species-specific catch and landings data and reporting of species-specific biological and trade data.

39. Each State is responsible for elaborating its own shark plan. If a plan is considered unnecessary or premature, States should review the decision regularly, but at a minimum, data on catches, landings and trade should be collected. Within their respective competencies and consistent with international law, they are invited to cooperate through regional fisheries organizations, or other forms of arrangements to ensure the sustainability of stocks, including if appropriate, development of regional shark management plans. In particular, where transboundary, highly migratory and high seas stocks of sharks are exploited by several States they should ensure effective conservation and management of the stocks. States should report on the progress of the assessment, development and implementation of their shark plans in their report to COFI on the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

40. As directed by COFI, the FAO Fisheries Department will support development and implementation of shark plans. As part of support activities, FAO has prepared several technical publications, including case studies, on the Management of Elasmobranch Fisheries; Utilization and Marketing of Shark; species identification guides and an account of the status of world shark resources. A guide on the management of sharks is about to be published and a mechanism for technical assistance to countries in connection with development of shark plans is being elaborated.

41. It can be noted that the shark issue was of concern at the First Session of the SAC Sub-Committee on Marine Environment and Ecosystems. This is reflected in the SAC recommendation to GFCM¹³ inviting member countries to coordinate their national shark plans at a regional (Mediterranean) level within the framework of FAO's IPOA on conservation and management of sharks.

OBJECTIVE AND RELIABLE FISHERY STATUS AND TRENDS REPORTING

42. Sustainable fisheries and aquaculture require informed decisions and actions at all levels, from policy-makers to individual fishers, as well as by environmentalists that are increasingly concerned about fisheries, consumers and the public. Decision-making based on the best scientific evidence requires reliable, relevant and timely information. There are increasing demands for objective, unbiased, peer reviewed and transparent information on the status and trends of fisheries and fishery resources as a basis for policy making and fisheries management. Behind such demands is an increasing recognition that overfishing is pervasive and effective management often lacking, a growing adoption of the precautionary approach to fisheries management as embodied in the UN Fish Stocks Agreement and the use of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, as well concerns about rare, or endangered, species and about the environment.

43. Status and trends reporting has become an issue because many public decision makers consider that large amounts of misinformation is being propagated by special interest groups. A study by the University of Washington¹⁴ evaluated the validity of 14 statements commonly made about the state of marine fishery resources and found that 10 of these were unsupportable or questionable, whereas only four were supportable. Irrespective of the cause of inaccurate information, it can have a major impact on public opinion and policy making which may not be in the best interests of both sustainable use of fishery resources and conservation of aquatic ecosystems.

44. FAO is addressing this issue by proposing the improvement of fishery status and trends reporting using a multifaceted approach as outlined by the FAO Advisory Committee on Fisheries Research (ACFR). ACFR has proposed that this could be facilitated by an international plan of action (IPOA) on fishery status and trends reporting which States would adopt through COFI. As envisaged, the IPOA would be a voluntary instrument which would specify actions and procedures to be undertaken by States, both individually and through regional fishery organizations or arrangements, and by FAO to improve fishery status and trends reporting. The IPOA could be built around the following principles:

� Sustainability and security. States should demonstrate their commitment to sustainable development of fishery resources and fisheries by providing the best information possible on the status and trends of fisheries within their jurisdictions and fisheries in other areas in which they participate.

� Best scientific evidence. States should seek to collect, compile and disseminate the best scientific evidence available on the nature and conduct of fisheries, including environmental and socio-economic information, in conformity with UNCLOS.

� Participation and cooperation. States should adopt mechanisms for inclusion of all relevant participants in the preparation, analysis and presentation of fishery information, including fishers, government and non-governmental organizations. States should cooperate with other States in developing and maintaining such fishery information either directly, or through regional fishery organizations or arrangements, as appropriate.

� Objectivity and transparency. States should individually, and through regional fishery organizations and FAO, prepare and disseminate fishery information in an objective manner, taking into account the best scientific evidence available (including uncertainty), the precautionary approach and national and international obligations related to it, and applying quality criteria and quality assurance protocols. The IPOA should be implemented in a transparent manner in conformity with Article 6.13 of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

45. A mechanism to collate and exchange fishery information including status and trends reports is under development and it could serve as the key vehicle for implementation of the IPOA. A major effort is being directed by FAO towards the development of a global information system for fisheries (FIGIS) which will facilitate exchange of fishery information on a wide variety of information domains such as fishery statistics, exploited species, fishery resources and stocks, the fisheries themselves, fishing methods, fishing fleets, fish processing and food safety, fish marketing and trade, species introductions, and fish diseases, to name but a few. The information architecture will be designed so that the complexity of the whole system be presented in a simplified way, through logical navigation channels. FIGIS will not be just a dissemination system, but also a means for partners to contribute information. The information will be exchanged according to arrangements specified in partnership agreements involving FAO, regional fishery organizations and national centers of excellence, and using agreed protocols. Thus, the main novelty will be the more systematic and transparent assembly and synthesis of information from national to regional, and then to global scales, with users having the possibility of accessing a much more comprehensive range of information. Another main focus and beneficiary of this approach will be the synthesis on the global state of marine fishery resources.

46. FAO has a major responsibility to support capacity building in developing countries to allow users to access, utilize and contribute to fisheries information and knowledge systems including FIGIS. For example, the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) bibliographic database will be a satellite system of FIGIS and a major effort is being made to provide access to ASFA in low-income food-deficit countries and to provide more input to the database from those countries. Communication between FIGIS and the FAO regional information systems, including GIS, such as those for Mediterranean capture fisheries and aquaculture, will be given precedence during the early phases of the FIGIS initiative. Likewise, software for the collection and processing of fishery statistics are increasingly being implemented in GFCM countries to improve the quality of national statistics and facilitate exchange at regional and global levels.

SUGGESTED ACTION BY THE COMMISSION

47. The Commission is invited to review these issues in the context of the GFCM region. In particular, the Commission may wish to identify mechanisms to advance the implementation of the IPOAs for the Management of Fishing Capacity and on the Conservation and Management of Sharks, and to combat IUU fishing in the region. In addition, it may wish to exchange experiences concerning the issue of subsidies and identify possible new opportunities to apply the precautionary approach and identify reference values and related indicators for those GFCM fisheries under stress. The Commission might wish to formulate specific recommendations on any of the issues presented and discussed for consideration by the Committee on Fisheries.

48. Delegates are invited to inform the Commission of actions taken or initiated to implement the IPOA for the Management of Fishing Capacity and the IPOA on the Conservation and Management of Sharks.

49. The Commission is invited to take note of these developments and to suggest how this issue could be addressed at sub-regional and regional levels.

50. The Commission may wish to discuss the incidence of IUU fishing in the Mediterranean and suggest how this phenomenon could be effectively addressed at sub-regional, bilateral and national levels.

1 Report of the Twenty-fourth session, para. 24.

2 Report of the Twenty-second Session of the Committee on Fisheries, para.12.

3 Report of the Hundred and sixteenth Session of the FAO Council, para. 29 and Report of the Twenty-third Session of COFI, para. 34.

4 1995 FAO Agreement to Promote Compliance with International Conservation and Management Measures

5 Report of the Twenty-fourth session of GFCM, para. 43.

6 Report of the Twenty-third session of GFCM, Appendix D.

7 Report of the Sixth Session of the COFI's Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (June 1998), para. 17

8 When developing their national plans for the management of fishing capacity, States should assess the possible impact of all factors, including subsidies, contributing to overcapacity and unsustainable management of their fisheries, distinguishing between factors, including subsidies, which contribute to overcapacity and unsustainability and those which produce a positive effect or are neutral". (Paragraph 25. International Plan of Action for the Management of Fishing Capacity).

9 The Government of Australia seconded an expert to work in the Fisheries Department (for 6 months) with the main task of assisting in analysing data obtained and preparing for an expert consultation on IUU fishing.

10 Report of the Twenty-third Session (Rome, July 1998), para.59.

11 Draft Report of the Third Session of SAC (Madrid, 2000), para. 41.

12 Report of the Twenty-third Session (Rome, 1998), para. 61 and para. 63.

13 Report of SAC, Third Session (Madrid, Spain, May 2000), para. 71.

14 Alverson, D.L. and K. Dunlop. 1998. Status of World Marine Fish Stocks. Fisheries Research Institute, University of Washington. FRI-UW-9814. 29 pp.