Experience Note: Participation in a Fisheries Commission and the Adoption of Conservation and Management Measures for Sustainable Use of Transboundary Oceanic Fish Stocks
The OFM project’s two objectives are to improve the understanding of the transboundary
oceanic fish resources and related features of the Western and Central Pacific Warm Pool Large Marine
Ecosystem (WCPWP-LME) and to create new regional institutional arrangements and reform, realign and
strengthen national arrangements for the conservation and management of transboundary oceanic
fishery resources. The Convention that established the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries
Commission is the first major regional application of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement. The WCPF
Commission receives advice and recommendations principally from committees dealing with science, an
ad-hoc data task group and another on technical and compliance matters, all of which Pacific SIDS fully
participate. The performance of Pacific SIDS as members of the WCPF Commission is commendable but
it remains to be seen if their application and energy is sustainable in the long term. The historical
development of regional cooperation resulting in the way in which Pacific SIDS contribute to regional
fisheries management in the current environment may serve to provide guidance to groupings of
developing States elsewhere, that share similar resource management issues.
N. Barbara Hanchard
expnote_pacific_fisheries.pdf
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