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Over the next two weeks, 20 fisheries inspectors and national officers from 10 countries in Asia and the Pacific will benefit from specialized advanced training on fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS), provided by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

This is the fourth time that the FAO international advanced course on fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance is being delivered since its launch in 2022, strengthening the implementation of the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) and complementary international instruments to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. This is the first time that the course is being delivered in Busan, the Republic of Korea, at one of three PSMA Training Hubs around the world.

Participants benefiting from this training session hail from Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Viet Nam.

The FAO international advanced course on fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance provides a robust set of skills and knowledge to be retained long-term across practical situations. Topics covered include the Law of the Sea, fisheries law, fisheries management, the PSMA and combatting IUU fishing, MCS, fisheries enforcement, transshipment monitoring, catch documentation schemes, estimation of IUU fishing, and FAO information systems. This allows participants to become familiar with the recent developments in MCS tools and technologies, contributing to improving compliance and enforcement capacity in their countries while supporting a more coordinated action across borders.

The training is delivered by FAO experts and representatives from the Republic of Korea’s Ministry for Oceans and Fisheries. The two-week programme combines a theoretical method with an applied approach focused on case studies. 

The course, which kicked off this morning with the representatives of entities involved, is being held with the financial support of the European Union and the Republic of Korea, with the technical collaboration of the Pukyong National University and the Overseas Fisheries Cooperation Center (OFCC).

It forms part of the intensive FAO Fisheries Global Fisheries Training Programme which contributes to national, regional, and global efforts to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing.

More information about FAO’s Global Training Programme is available here.