John Heilprin February 5, 2009
THIRTEEN years after the world rallied to curb overfishijavascript:void(0);ng, most nations are failing to abide by the UN’s “code of conduct” for managing fisheries, scientists found.
Australia, Norway, the US, Canada, Iceland and Namibia were the only nations that scored above a 60 per cent compliance rate, the equivalent of a barely passing “D” grade, according to the marine scientists’ research.
The global fisheries standards were developed in 1995 by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome. Though voluntary, the 12-part code is based on rules of international law and some of it has been made into legally binding agreements.
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“The overall conclusion is really a bit depressing. Even the countries that score at the top of our range are not doing very well,” said lead author Tony Pitcher of University of British Columbia in Vancouver. “People have no excuse for not knowing what to do. We know exactly what to do. We’ve got into a dreadful mess on the oceans, they’re severely overfished.”
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But a study last month in the journal Conservation Biology suggests the problem will not be so easy to fix. It found the wealthiest among 141 Kenyan fisherman were the most willing to do something else when fish stocks collapse.
Wildlife Conservation Society zoologist Tim McClanahan of Kenya said that “poor fishers with few jobs will continue to fish as stocks decline,” contributing to a downward spiral of declining fish populations. He said fellow scientists Joshua Cinner of Australia and Tim Daw of Britain suggest creating wealth or jobs for the poorest fishermen to give them some alternatives.
Full story at: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/most-nations-ignore-un-fisheries-code-20090205-7y2y.html
