PROCEEDINGS OF THE FOuRTH INTERNaTIONal FISHERS FORum

[ 3. ]
Executive Summary and
Review of Participant Commitments
Ms. Kitty Simonds, Executive Director, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council
The Fourth International Fishers Forum (IFF4) was held
from 12–14 November 2007 in Puntarenas, Costa Rica. The
Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council and
Instituto Costarricense de Pesca y Acuicultura (Costa Rica
Fisheries and Aquaculture Institute) were the conference
co-hosts. Technical assistance for program development and
convening the conference was provided by staff from IUCN
(International Union for the Conservation of Nature), the
Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission and the World
Wide Fund for Nature.
After three days of very intensive sessions and discussions
I believe that we have had a very successful meeting. The
breadth and scale of this Fishers Forum has been the most
ambitious yet. This international meeting of 250 fishermen,
management authorities, seafood industry and retailers,
fishing technology experts, marine ecologists and fisheries
scientists resulted in the active exchange of wide-ranging
perspectives and approaches for responsible longline and
gillnet fisheries, including to minimize sea turtle, seabird,
and marine mammal incidental catch, and ensure that
sharks and their relatives receive needed protection. Forum
participants took an honest look at the state of our artisanal
and industrial fisheries, exchanged ideas on how to improve
them and committed to concrete follow-up actions.
On Day 1, following the opening ceremony and welcomes,
the stage was set in the afternoon by presentations on the
global tuna industry and then on issues related to longline
fisheries in Central and South America, Hawaii, Fiji and
the Pacific Islands and Indonesia. It is clear from these
different presentations that longline fishing is not getting any
easier and that serious challenges lie ahead to maintain the
continuity of these fisheries.
The fisheries of Central and South America do not exist in
mutual isolation, and there are a number of regional and
sub-regional institutional arrangements that were reviewed
by this forum, which considered the relationships between
locally managed small scale domestic pelagic fisheries and
larger fisheries on the high seas in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
The final sessions on Day 1 considered a new and exciting
topic for the forum series, namely the issue of protected
species interactions in gillnets. This was a very welcome
development, and I hope that participants were encouraged
that there are solutions to gillnet bycatch that can be
implemented with the active collaboration of fishing
communities.
The morning of Day 2 elaborated on the theme of fisheries
sustainability and regional cooperation. This included
separate sessions by industrial and artisanal fishers to
discuss what they felt were best ways to achieve sustainable
livelihoods for both sectors. In the industrial panel there
were issues about resource allocation between purse seiners
and longliners, the canned tuna and sashimi markets, large
and small longliners and coastal states and distant water
fishing states. There was also discussion on fishing capacity,
technological developments, ecosystem approach to fisheries
management and compliance, an issue that appears to be
getting worse not better among the tuna regional fishery
management organizations (RFMOs).
In the artisanal session there was discussion about the
development of a new regional or international artisanal
fishery organization for small scale tuna fishers. This new
organization would be charged with defining the extent of
the small scale fishermen participation in tuna fisheries.
This group also discussed the development of a wide
ranging education program to promote global awareness
of artisanal fishing, information exchange, especially on
bycatch mitigation technology and resource management
information. There was also consideration of adopting a
Code of Conduct for Artisanal Fishers.
The afternoon of Day 2 was what I personally consider
the core of the IFF series, namely the technical sessions
on protected species mitigation and longline fisheries.
The seabird session focused on increased collaboration
amongst the longline fisheries of Central and South
American countries to address seabird interactions in
longline fisheries and about exporting lessons learned
Executive Summary and Review of Participant Commitments
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