Fisheries Agreements are beneficial

Fisheries agreements operate to ensure that states economically benefit from their own fishing industries. This is legally possible because the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention in concomitance with the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement ensured that states gained sovereign rights for exploiting and managing their natural resources off their coasts up to 200 nautical miles.

Big Market Wide Reach

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) states in its leading document that monitors the state of the world’s fisheries and aquaculture, that based on catch weight, the EU is the largest single market of the worlds import of fish and fish products.[1] The same report notes that in Africa, marine catches in its main fishing areas continue to grow and the firm connection of African fisheries with its ocean communities highlights the importance of fisheries in terms of value and employment.[2]

The EU is best placed to affect change and support its fisheries partners in fully realising the potential contributions of their fisheries to the growth of their economies.

A New Protocol between the EU and Senegal

On 24 July 2019, the EU announced its signing of a sustainable fishing partnership agreement Protocol with Senegal.[3] This new Protocol, which is not yet in force, implements the 2014 Fisheries agreement between the EU and Senegal; a multi-species agreement which sets out the conditions whereby EU fishing vessels may sustainably fish in Senegalese waters.

The new Protocol, in superseding the current Protocol (due to expire November 2019) takes into account best available scientific advice, a stakeholders’ consultation and the recommendations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT). In exchange for fishing rights, the EU will pay Senegal €1,700,000 p.a. and part of this will be reserved for sustainable fisheries management in Senegal. By tackling illegal, unrecorded and unreported (IUU) fishing, the value of Senegalese fisheries would be increased. In addition to this annual financial contribution, ship owners would be required to contribute approx. €1,350,000 yearly to Senegal.

The Fleet and Issues of Sustainability

The new Protocol specifies a maximum of 28 tuna seiners. In comparison with the current Protocol, the new Protocol increases the provisions for pole-and-line vessels. It also introduces provisions for long liner vessels whilst retaining the current Protocol’s provisions for trawlers for demersal species such as hake.

Based on the press document, it is currently unclear how the retention of the current Protocol’s provision for trawlers for demersal species would achieve the EU’s goal of lowering the total allowable catch for hake. So, I will update my readers when the new Protocol enters into force and is made available for scholarly analysis.

Agreements should recognise that sustainable maximisation of economic returns is a continually evolving relationship between economic productivity and ready availability.

Sustainability as a Process: Some Questions

As the EU seeks to engage with host states in negotiating sustainable fisheries agreements and/or implementing Protocols, these are some of the questions it must continually address:

Is there measurable and traceable evidence of the incorporation of scientific advice in these agreements?
What stock-wide management arrangements are in place?
How may the EU contribute to increasing the management capacity of the host state particularly in developing economies’ artisanal sector through the viability of the local fishing communities?
How may the EU assist or reinforce Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) activities in the host state?

Any focus on ready availability of resource should regularly assess and take into account emerging issues affecting the parties’ economic, human, national and institutional sectors.

[1]FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture (FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department.2018) 56.

[2]Ibid.

[3]https://ec.europa.eu/fisheries/press/eu-signs-sustainable-fishing-partnership-agreement-protocol-senegal_en