Fishery management Institutions and the Challenge

of Change

Robin Allen

Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission

Ministerial declaration, Conference on Fisheries Governance

• Recognizing that RFMOs today face new challenges and responsibilities, and while the governance of some RFMOs has been improved by incorporating the principles and provisions of newly developed international instruments and tools, including, inter alia, those related to ecosystem considerations in fisheries management, other RFMOs remain to be so improved and, to that end, there is a need for political will to further strengthen and modernize RFMOs to ensure that such challenges and responsibilities are effectively addressed;

A global perspective

United Nations 1992 1995 Food and

Agriculture Organization

1995

2005 St John’s Fisheries Governance

2002 Reykjavik Responsible

Fishing (ecosystems)

1992 Cancun Responsible

Fishing

1949 IATTC Convention

• Make investigations concerning the abundance, biology, biometry, and ecology of yellowfin … ; and the effects of natural factors and human activities on the abundance of the populations of fishes supporting all these fisheries.

UNFSA and FAO CCRF

• If a natural phenomenon has a significant adverse impact on the status of living aquatic resources, States should adopt conservation and management measures on an emergency basis to ensure that fishing activity does not exacerbate such adverse impact. States should also adopt such measures on an emergency basis where fishing activity presents a serious threat to the sustainability of such resources. Measures taken on an emergency basis should be temporary and should be based on the best scientific evidence available.

UNFSA management strategy

• Management strategies shall seek to maintain or restore populations … at levels consistent with previously agreed precautionary reference points. Such reference points shall be used to trigger pre-agreed conservation and management action.

Best estimate for low scenario (B1) is 1.8°C (likely range is 1.1°C to 2.9°C), and for high scenario (A1FI) is 4.0°C (likely range is 2.4°C to 6.4°C).

Fig SPM-5 IPCC Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Norway FAO COFI intervention

• Climate change might be the factor that will affect the marine ecosystem most. The IPCC report, released a few weeks ago, points to a number of disturbing trends.  The Panel predicts that global temperatures will continue to rise, at an average rate of some 0.2 centigrade per decade. Among the consequences are sea level rise, declining extent of sea ice in the Polar Regions, and major changes to ecosystems. Confronting climate change, therefore, is the biggest challenge facing mankind today … The consequences of climate change for fisheries can be dramatic – in this century. It may well be that climate change is the biggest challenge to fisheries globally over the next decades. Doing nothing is therefore not an option … the “sit back and wait” approach is likely to be a very costly one.  We will therefore propose … that the FAO undertake a major scoping study to identify the major issues regarding climate changes and fisheries. As a second step initiate a global think-tank on how the fishing industry globally can adapt to climate change. And third, FAO has an important mission in informing fishers and policymakers about the likely consequences of climate change for this sector.

Changes in the Eastern Pacific ocean

Catches of BET by longline and purse seine

Recruitment and biomass of YFT and BET

Yellowfin catch by gear type (preliminary)

Eastern Pacific Sea Surface Temperature and Anomalies

http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/bulletin/figt5.html

National Weather Service Climate Diagnostics Bulletin