Suva, Fiji – The Coral
Triangle Fishers Forum concluded today with
specific calls to action for varied fisheries
stakeholders in the region to help address
the urgent and critical problem of Illegal,
Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The forum called for
national governments to recognize IUU fishing
as a threat to sustainable fisheries, food
security, and livelihoods in the region
and to prioritize actions at national and
regional levels to address this problem,
which include allocating sufficient funds
for monitoring, control, and surveillance
technologies and enacting traceability and
catch documentation measures in fisheries.
Traceability and catch
documentation as part of a larger effective
information management system were identified
as key solutions to addressing IUU fishing
during the 3-day forum attended by local
fishers, fishing companies, NGOs, regional
fisheries bodies, and government representatives.
Adopting these systems
in fisheries was recognized by the Forum
not only as imperative to combating IUU
fishing but also as sound business tools
to help improve inventory management, seafood
product quality, and market accessibility.
However, it was also
recognized that implementing such systems
will entail stronger support from key stakeholders
across the entire supply chain and that
appropriate incentives and skills need to
be developed for different fisheries to
adopt them.
Recognizing the interest
of suppliers, retailers, buyers, and restaurateurs
in sustainable and legally-caught seafood,
the forum also called upon these groups
to directly pressure governments to adopt
and implement traceability systems as a
core component of fisheries management.
Specific action plans
to be implemented by members of the Forum
were also identified, which include activities
to help raise awareness on IUU fishing as
a threat to sustainable fisheries and the
solutions available to address it, developing
cost-effective tools and innovative technologies
to combat IUU fishing, and advocating national
government and regional bodies to implement
and enforce information management systems.
The 3-day forum gave
the more than 100 participants from 25 countries
the opportunity to learn from varied case
studies in addressing IUU fishing, examine
anti-IUU fishing opportunities, solutions
and innovations, and identify enabling policies
and programs to support IUU fishing responses.
A number of fruitful
networking sessions also arose from the
Forum, which had big fishing companies,
small-scale fishers, and government representatives
sharing experiences and initiating possible
collaborations on fishing best practices.
+ More
Brazil and Mexico leaders
key to fate of sustainable development vision
World leaders have four
days to hash out a sustainable development
vision, which is rapidly disintegrating
in the Rio+20 negotiations – and Mexico
and Brazil hold the keys to breaking the
current political deadlock.
Mexican President Felipe
Calderon is hosting G20 leaders in Los Cabos
to address global economic and financial
stability – a crucial platform to determine
how countries can move beyond the traditional
and narrow way of measuring growth and stability
by taking into account social and environmental
factors.
“Shadowed by worsening
ecological and financial crises, world leaders
have the opportunity in Los Cabos to change
the way we measure growth to better account
for social and environmental wealth,” said
Lasse Gustavsson, head of WWF’s Rio+20 delegation.
“To be meaningful, these indicators must
be clear and comparable at the international
level.”
From Los Cabos, many
G20 leaders will fly directly to Rio de
Janeiro where, 20 years after the 1992 Rio
Earth Summit, Brazil President Dilma Rousseff
will host more than 120 Heads of States
and governments. Negotiators in Rio are
working – and currently failing – towards
developing a common vision for a sustainable
future.
“At this point, the
G20 Summit and the Rio+20 Earth Summit are
entirely intertwined – and the success of
both processes rests on the skills of the
Mexican and Brazilian leadership. Success
at the G20 today would significantly invigorate
the Rio+20 negotiations, where language
on going beyond GDP and fossil fuel subsidy
reform is on the table.”
Failure to move on these
critical issues would also represent a missed
opportunity to showcase the G20’s role as
a responsible and constructive global actor.
Talks are presently
uninspiring in Rio, focusing on process
rather than substance, two years after first
negotiations began on “the future we want”.
One of the major outcomes of Rio+20 would
be a credible and effective process to Sustainable
Development Goals and the naming of key
thematic areas now.
“Ultimately, we are
in desperate need of a high-level political
mandate to deliver a successful outcome
in Rio+20 – and this discussion needs to
start among world leaders at the G20 under
the leadership of Mexico,” Gustavsson said.
An end to fossil Fuels
subsidies
Three years ago at the
Pittsburgh G20, Heads of State pledged to
reform fossil fuels subsidies for the first
time. Since then there has been little progress
and no concrete action. WWF calls on the
G20 leaders to commit to end environmentally
harmful fossil fuel subsidies and redirect
these funds towards renewable, sustainable
solutions.
“World leaders coming
to Rio need to show their support for sustainable
development by phasing out harmful fossil
fuel subsidies completely and investing
in a more sustainable future” added Gustavsson.
“We call on governments to now deliver on
past pledges, with transparent reporting
to quantify existing subsidies and progress
to date, and an action plan with concrete
dates to phase out harmful fossil fuel subsidies”.
Mobilising finance
WWF is also calling
on G20 leaders to affirm pledges and innovative
sources for sustainable development, including
climate finance. In these difficult economic
times, countries need to update public finances
in an efficient way and this could include
auctioning allowances or levies on emissions
from the marine and aviation sector. These
new forms of financing would activate financial
flows and ensure additional income for governments
while addressing key environmental issues.
Just before the Rio+20 Conference opens,
such a move would motivate decision-makers
at Rio+20, showing there is scope for marshalling
the resources necessary for sustainable
development, even under current economic
conditions.
