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

1. IntroductionAsia is the world’s largest producer of seafood, accounting for over 50 percent of global productionfrom wild capture fisheries as well as around 90 percent of global aquaculture production. As such,the management of wild capture fisheries in the region for long-term sustainability is of globalsignificance as well as being of vital national interest to the countries of the region because fishingactivities account, in many countries, for a significant proportion of GDP and are often important insupporting large rural populations. Despite this importance, the history of exploitation andmanagement of wild fish resources in the region has generally not been good with stocks oftenbeing overexploited both historically and also in recent times (for example, see Butcher, 2004 fora review of the history of sequential overexploitation in the industrial marine fisheries of SoutheastAsia and Sugiyama, Staples and Funge-Smith, 2004 for a review of the status of regional fisheries),fisheries that are usually characterized by open access and hence overcapacity and low profitabilityand weak enforcement of fisheries regulations (see Box 1 for the benefits of better management offisheries).However, there has been a growing recognition within the region that the rapid decline in fisheryresources over the past thirty to forty years must be curtailed and that there is a need to manage wildfisheries resources for long term sustainability (see, for example, Morgan, 2006). This is beingreflected in many countries by an increasing emphasis on measuring and managing fishing capacityand on controlling illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, both by nationals of coastalstates and also by foreign fishing fleets.The extent to which progress has been made by countries of the region in addressing the key issuesof overcapacity and IUU fishing was examined as part of a workshop, organized by the Asia-PacificFisheries Commission (APFIC) and held in Phuket, Thailand in June 2007. As a background paperto this workshop, this regional synthesis has been prepared to provide information on progress andtrends in the region in identifying and implementing actions on the major issues of overcapacity andIUU fishing and to provide an assessment of the effectiveness of these actions. This synthesis relieson information provided directly by the APFIC countries, which was requested from all countrydelegates as part of the preliminary work undertaken for the workshop. The information is thereforecurrent and provides a snapshot of fishing capacity and IUU issues which has not previously beenavailable.It is anticipated that the information contained in this regional synthesis will provide the necessarybackground for identifying the major issues related to management of fishing capacity and IUUfishing and for developing specific action plans at both national and regional level.1