At Rome Meeting, Countries Should Focus on Gaps in High Seas Fisheries Management

A glaring gap exists in global ocean governance, which, if allowed to persist, could limit the success of international efforts to protect the ocean and the people who depend on it. Unregulated and poorly regulated high seas fishing – especially for squid – has long undermined scientists’ understanding of the relationship between fisheries and ecosystem health and the traceability of catch. But unregulated and poorly regulated fishing are often overlooked within broader conversations about illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and the long-term health of the world’s ocean.

This gap is serious, but it is not insurmountable. From 7 to 11 September, governments will gather in Rome for the thirty-seventh session of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Committee on Fisheries (COFI), where they will have the opportunity to begin improving data collection and identifying how existing governance instruments should be applied to unregulated and poorly regulated high seas fisheries.

Since 2022, the global community has been increasing the number and scale of commitments to stronger ocean governance. Governments have acted to protect biodiversity, reduce harmful fisheries subsidies, improve fishers’ safety at sea and protect large areas of the high seas. But to date, these efforts have paid far too little attention to the hundreds of thousands of tons of ocean life harvested without comprehensive international management and control, particularly major high seas squid fisheries.

Squid supply chains are often opaque, complicating seafood buyers’ efforts to differentiate products that come from well-managed fisheries from those caught in unregulated or under-regulated regulated parts of the ocean. As a result, the total extent of squid catches on the high seas cannot be quantified. The FAO reports that nearly half a million tons of Argentine shortfin squid are caught annually in areas of the South Atlantic with no international fisheries management. However, catch figures cannot be determined for the Indian Ocean, where another large squid fishery is known to operate.

But in recent years, unregulated squid fisheries – and the vagaries of the supply chain – have begun to garner scrutiny, primarily because they target an in-demand food source. Overall, global squid fisheries are projected to grow to more than US$16.5 billion per year by 2032. The upcoming COFI meeting represents a critical opportunity to act on this growing area of concern.

Insufficient oversight poses risks to marine ecosystems, fisher safety

Inadequate management undermines governments’ collective efforts to protect biodiversity and maintain healthy marine ecosystems. Weak oversight of critical prey species, such as squid, also has consequences that ripple through the food web. 

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Lax governance also can contribute to overfishing of the targeted stocks and unsustainable catch of other vulnerable species, while inadvertently providing cover for criminal behaviour, such as the weakly addressed labour abuses in squid fisheries. Where unregulated fisheries dominate, legitimate fishers, as well as coastal communities that rely on healthy fisheries for food and livelihoods, can lose out on potential profits and access to vital resources.

Governments can leverage existing commitments to minimize threats from IUU fishing

International legal frameworks already exist to govern fishing outside national waters. The landmark United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement, among others, mandate cooperation on conservation and management of living resources on the high seas, including through regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), which are multinational bodies, made up of countries with interests in specific fisheries. RFMOs have made important advances in science-based management and compliance for various tuna and other high value fisheries, but they generally haven’t committed to the same level of management for other fisheries, such as those for squid.

In areas where RFMOs do not have jurisdiction, other international agreements provide tools that managers can use to bolster fishing oversight and compliance. For example, the FAO Compliance Agreement requires flag States – the countries whose registered vessels engage in fishing activities in a given ocean region – to take responsibility for their vessels’ conduct on the high seas and ensure adherence to international conservation and management measures. Likewise, Parties to the FAO Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) – the only treaty dedicated to combatting IUU fishing – could expand their use of risk-based port inspections beyond foreign fishing vessels to include domestic vessels and those arriving from unregulated fishing areas.

An opportunity to strengthen collaboration on unregulated fishing

This past February, COFI members met in Iceland and agreed that the global community must increase cooperation to strengthen high seas management of unregulated species, particularly in ocean areas not covered by an RFMO. Parties to UNCLOS are legally obligated to work together on fisheries management, and they should use the September meeting to earnestly begin examining the gaps that enable unregulated fishing.

First, governments need far better data collection to support effective evaluations of the health of squid populations and determine appropriate management measures. To that end, COFI members should endorse the Sub-Committee on Fisheries Management’s recommendation to create an expert group on high seas squid to conduct scientific stock assessments.

Additionally, COFI members should ask the FAO to study the existing frameworks that govern unregulated or poorly regulated areas to determine how States can appropriately and collaboratively apply those agreements or treaties’ rules to meet their responsibilities under international law. Following that, fishing nations, markets, port States and coastal governments should work together to develop additional governance measures if needed, ensure appropriate oversight and enforce existing rules.

The international architecture for strong fisheries governance already exists, and decades of progress managing shared fish stocks have demonstrated that effective, science-based management is possible. This September, countries have an opportunity to translate their commitments to ocean protection into action, beginning the work to close key gaps in high seas fisheries management.

Dawn Borg Costanzi leads The Pew Charitable Trusts’ regional coordination efforts to deter illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and Elaine Young leads research on implementation of international agreements to end IUU fishing.