A Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)-led is pushing for
the establishment of internationally agreed standards that could guide the
development of catch documentation schemes aimed at keeping illegally caught
fish off store-shelves and consumers' plates has taken an important step forward,
reports NaijaAgroNet.
A set of draft Voluntary Guidelines on Catch Documentation
Schemes was last week unanimously adopted by a technical consultation that
brought a 5-year negotiation effort to a close, and are now poised for adoption
by all FAO Members at the UN agency's upcoming bi-annual governing conference
(Rome 3-8 July 2017).
Once approved by the Conference, the guidelines will act as
an internationally-recognized "gold standard" reference for
governments and businesses looking to establish systems that can trace fish
from their point of capture through the entire supply chain - from "sea to
plate" - in order to stop illegally caught fish from entering the
marketplace.
Globally, some 91-93 million tonnes of fish are captured
each year, and seafood products are among the world's most widely traded food
commodities, with an export value of $142 billion in 2016.
On top of that, Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)
fishing is estimated to strip as much as 26 million additional tonnes of fish
from the oceans annually, damaging marine ecosystems and sabotaging efforts to
sustainably manage fisheries.
Catch documentation schemes (CDS) offer a way to cut down on
trade in illegal fish. The basic concept: shipments of fish are certified by
national authorities as being caught legally and in compliance with best
practices; certifying hard-copy documentation then accompanies the fish as they
are processed and marketed nationally or internationally. Only fish with valid
documentation can be exported or traded to markets where a CDS requirement
exists.
Until recently, only a few such schemes had been
established, and mostly focusing on high-value species whose overexploitation
prompted particular concern, such as Chilean Seabass harvested in Antarctic
waters, or Atlantic and Southern Bluefin Tuna.
But with seafood trade at record highs and consumer demand
still rising, catch documentation schemes are increasingly seen as a tool that
could be more widely applied. Indeed, the EU since 2010 has used a CDS that
covers all fish shipments imported into the bloc from overseas; and in 2016,
the United States announced its own scheme, the Seafood Import Monitoring
Program.
Isaac Oyimah/GEE
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