The marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) comprises 40 percent of the earth’s surface, it covers 64 percent of the surface of the ocean and 95 percent of its volume. The Common Oceans ABNJ Program (2014-2019) was implemented by FAO as a concerted effort to bring various stakeholders to work together to manage and conserve the world’s common oceans.   The ABNJ Deep-Sea project, one component of the Common Oceans ABNJ Program, was of great assistance to newly-formed regional fisheries management organization and arrangements (RFMO/As), as well as some long-standing regional fisheries. The project showed positive results in safeguarding vulnerable marine ecosystems, strengthening monitoring, control and surveillance to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, mitigating bycatch mortality trends, and building awareness of cross-sectoral aspects in effective governance of ABNJ. Through its cooperation with RFMOs, the project has, to some extent, contributed to minimize the negative impacts of bycatch. Results achieved should be capitalized on and upscaled in a second phase.

The marine areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) comprise 40 percent of the earth’s surface, covering 64 percent of the surface of the ocean and 95 percent of its volume. The Common Oceans ABNJ Programme (2014-2019) was implemented by FAO as a concerted effort to bring stakeholders to work together to manage and conserve the world’s common oceans. The ABNJ Tuna project, one component of the Common Oceans ABNJ Programme, promoted important transformational changes in the management practices of tuna fisheries, improving their sustainability, strengthening Marine Stewardship Council capabilities of tuna regional fisheries management organizations (t-RFMOs) and their members, and significantly reducing their impact on biodiversity. The project generated knowledge but lacked a structured mechanism and strategy to harvest and disseminate it. Similarly to the programme level evaluation report, the programmatic approach component, the partnership framework, as well as how to foster synergies among projects and capitalization of knowledge management should be strengthened.

This document provides an overview of the international framework for monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS), enforcement and compliance in deep-sea fisheries in the areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ). It also provides an overview of the regional fisheries management organisations or arrangements (RFMO/As) with a conservation and management mandate for deep-sea species and summarizes the MCS measures implemented by them. It highlights the need for the development of MCS strategy, best-practice data management, capacity building, and compliance evaluation to effectively implement MCS. The final part of 3 this document describes and discusses the IUU vessel listing measures and procedures of the deep-sea RFMO/As, other relevant IUU initiatives and recommendations to improve the IUU listing measures and procedures of the deep-sea RFMO/As.  

The fifth meeting of the ABNJ Deep Seas Project Steering Committee (PSC) was held at FAO Headquarters in Rome, Italy from 27–28 January 2020. The meeting was attended by representatives of eight project partners, including six regional bodies. The primary objectives of the fifth PSC were to consider the preliminary results of the Deep Sea Project (DSP) terminal evaluation and to provide feedback on the framework being developed for a second phase of the project under the coming GEF replenishment cycle. The PSC took note and commented on the Concept Note that has been prepared for the second phase of the DSP. The PSC also noted the timeline for the preparation and submission of documents for the GEF Council and that the five child projects and the Program Framework Document (PFD) need to be submitted together as a package. 

The seventh meeting of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) of the Common Oceans ABNJ Tuna Project was held in FAO Headquarters in Rome from 27-28 January 2020.