Fishing capacity management and IUU fishing in Asia - FAO.org

Percent1009080706050403020100Australia Bangladesh Cambodia Pakistan Philippines Sri Lanka Thailand Viet NamIndustrialSmall-scaleInlandFigure 1: The percentage of the three largest industrial, small-scale and inland fisheries ineach country where fishing capacity has been reported to have been assessedbeen paid to the assessment of fishing capacity in inland fisheries. Therefore, the situation withregard measuring fishing capacity in industrial fisheries does not seem to have changed significantlysince 2002, although there seems to have been in increase in the number of small-scale fisherieswhere fishing capacity is being measured 5 . The proportion of small-scale fisheries for which fishingcapacity has been assessed is, however, still only about 50 percent, compared with about 62 percentfor industrial fisheries but only 33 percent for inland fisheries.3.4 What are the legislative and institutional barriers to addressing fishing capacity inthe region?A review of fisheries legislation in the region in 2006 (Morgan, 2006) showed that 56 percent ofcountries of the region did not have the legislative ability within their national fisheries laws to limitthe number of licenses issued to fishers and/or vessels. However, of the ten countries that respondedto the current questionnaire, only two responded that they did not have such legislative powers forboth industrial and small-scale, artisanal fisheries (Table 3a and 3b). This discrepancy may be dueto the extent of administrative powers within national legislation 6 . The ability to limit licenses iscritical to addressing capacity issues and countries that do not have these powers should beencouraged to review their relevant legislation.Management plans, which often have a formal legal status 7 , (see below), are becoming increasinglycommon in most countries. Of the ten respondents, eight reported that they had developedmanagement plans for their major industrial fisheries (Table 3a). However, management plans aremuch less common for small-scale fisheries (Table 3b) with only four countries reporting that theyhave these in place for their largest small-scale, artisanal fisheries. This contrasts with responses in2003, when only two countries reported that they had developed management plans for any fishery.It is, however, important that management plans for any fishery in the region are actually used toguide implementation of management measures and are widely disseminated. In this regard, it isencouraging that, of the fisheries that were reported as having management plans, 86 percent ofthese management plans were reported as having a formal legal status although in 35 percent of5Although this is based on a limited sample of countries.6China and India also reported at the workshop that they have the power, at either national or state (provincial) level to limitlicence numbers and have used these powers in capacity management programmes.7Since some countries are still using fisheries legislation which dates back more than thirty years, revising and reforming thelegislation is an essential accompanying activity to introduction of management measures.10