| World resources monitoring |
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| The number of people in the developing countries who have the maritime background to train inspectors and/or fishers is limited. Usually the harbourmaster, coast guard or fisheries extensionist is the natural choices. Yet the trainers need to be properly prepared to be able to provide the appropriate training. It is essential that mutual trust is established between the trainer and trainees, and that the training is tailored to meet the needs of each particular group. It has been pointed out that "the big boat mentality" should be avoided and the instructors should be able to empathise with the fisher and understand that it is the fisher´s problem that has to be tackled.World marine capture fishery landings began to level off after 1970 and are now slowly approaching the forecast ceiling of conventional resources at about 100 million tonnes.Overall, about 50% of the world resources for which data is available are fully exploited and about 25% are overexploited while 25% could still apparently produce higher level of landings. A few fisheries have collapsed but many of them are in a state which could risk collapse.Since the UN Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED, 1992) there has been a widespread concern on the state of many fishery resources and their non-sustainable use. As a result, the performance of production and management systems and the adoption of new important international instruments have been questioned. This situation has been at times misinterpreted because of the lack of scientifically adequate and easily available information. While fairly detailed information is available for a number of important stocks, a large but unknown number of stocks and species are in an unassessed state. There is a particular lack of information on the status of resources in coastal areas (especially for many small islands), resources exploited by small-scale fisheries, and resources subject to rapid environmentally-induced fluctuations.With the adoption of UNCLOS, the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, the Code of Conduct, the Compliance Agreement, as well as the Convention on Biological Diversity, the legal framework for enhanced resources conservation has improved, but there is a growing feeling that public opinion is destabilized and often misinformed because of the lack of clear, easily understandable and verifiable information on the state of the resources and their habitat, based on the best scientific evidence available, from objective sources. Similarly, policy-makers, confronted with tremendous implementation challenges, lack clear information on alternative solutions and pathways to management or rebuilding of stocks as well as to ecosystem-based fisheries management.Monitoring the implementation of recently-agreed instruments and assessing management performance call for the development of harmonized and integrated information systems of indicators on the resources and their habitat. The formidable challenge created by rising demands for timely, verifiable, high-quality, integrated information, at the appropriate level of aggregation and resolution (from national to global levels) is currently being tackled by FAO through the development of FIGIS (the Fisheries Global Information System). |
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| Strategy The commitment of fishery information sources to use FIGIS, supplying information in the form required and supporting further development, is critical to FIGIS' success and acceptance. This kind of challenge can only be addressed through collaborative development between potential partners. Thus FIGIS has been developed as an information management tool that interconnects groups of institutional partnerships to build up a network of subsystems: |
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| The Fishery Resources Monitoring System (FIRMS), a global aquatic resource monitoring system, comprises core information modules on species, resources, fisheries and fisheries management systems |
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| Globefish contains information on international fish trade |
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| ASFA, the Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstract, is a bibliographical database |
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| Subsystems under development: Aquaculture, Trade and Marketing, and Research |
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| The number of people in the developing countries who have the maritime background to train inspectors and/or fishers is limited. Usually the harbourmaster, coast guard or fisheries extensionist is the natural choices. Yet the trainers need to be properly prepared to be able to provide the appropriate training. It is essential that mutual trust is established between the trainer and trainees, and that the training is tailored to meet the needs of each particular group. It has been pointed out that "the big boat mentality" should be avoided and the instructors should be able to empathise with the fisher and understand that it is the fisher´s problem that has to be tackled. |
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| The main objectives of FIGIS are to raise awareness of policy issues relating to fisheries and their environment, to promote standards and improved practices in the conduct of fisheries and fisheries-related activities, and to provide comprehensive and coherent fisheries information. |
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| Target beneficiaries The immediate beneficiaries are the partner Fisheries Regional Organizations who can more ably manage their wealth of information with greater responsiveness, exposure and transparency of process, as well as FAO in its efforts to promote global means to strengthen resources conservation and promote implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. However, the real final beneficiaries will be the global fisheries community who rely heavily on the accuracy of stock and yield assessments: |
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| Fishers require it - to enable them to receive allocations and plan their businesses and activities. |
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| Fishery managers need it - to define and make fishery allocations in respect of their management plan or regime. |
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| Policy-makers rely on it - to formulate plans and legal instruments in support of public objectives. |
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| The public demands it - to have a basis upon which to judge whether there is appropriate stewardship of both renewable resources and the environment. |
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| Fisheries scientists will use it - to understand effectiveness of approaches and methods thanks to facilitated comparative research. |
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| Future generations will appreciate it - to keep the flow of information going and to refine the techniques as a result of the 'hindsight' methods that will continue to be the basis of predictable fish yield assessments. |
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