Fisheries Policy and Management

Implementation of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries embodies a major effort by countries to foster food security and livelihoods in rural areas, rehabilitate the natural resources and food production systems, promote national and international framework for fish and aquaculture production, ensure that fishery products meet national and international standards, and enhance the conservation, management and sustainable intensification of fisheries. In this context, FAO monitors the implementation of the Code and supports this process, including advice on the structural changes required in the fisheries sector to place it on a long-term sustainable footing. FAO responds to the considerable need for assistance by many countries which wish to enact balanced fisheries management plans in their coast areas. The objective is to assist fishery communities to achieve a sustainable equilibrium, balancing the needs to engage in capture fisheries as a source of livelihood against the need to preserve natural resources.

Policies and regulatory measures for managing and protecting fishery resources and other associated aquatic habitat need to be based on sound economic and social analyses, especially regarding: (i) the use of economic incentives/disincentives to guide the behaviour of private industry towards optimal resources exploitation; (ii) the economic and social implications of alternate management approaches and techniques and development paths, and (iii) the needed institutional changes in government agencies to achieve sectoral management and development through cost-effective means and measures. FAO promotes improved economic and social analyses leading to sound policies and better institutional arrangements including inter-sectoral coordination, as well as improved policies by bilateral and multilateral agencies.

Since UNCED (Rio de Janeiro, 1992), the ecosystems dimension of management issues has received increasing attention from governments, the UN system and the fishing industry. All are now more ready to recognize that fish are an integrated part of an aquatic ecosystem, a system in which modifications in one area have the potential to affect other areas. Thus, it is increasingly regarded as necessary, first to monitor the state of the aquatic ecosystem and then to manage human interventions within that ecosystem.

• Operational Fisheries Management Planning (TCP)
  

SEE PROJECT EXAMPLE:

• Capacity Building in Planning and Co-Management of the Prawn Fishery (TCP)
  

• Fisheries Department
  
• State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture
  
• Legal Office
  
• Code of Conduct For Responsible Fisheries
  
• Fisheries Global Information System (FIGIS)
  
• GLOBEFISH
  
• FISH INFOnetwork