Regional Action Sought On Fish Stocks

November 29, 2006

Release from: The Australian

Indonesia and Australia are seeking to forge regional cooperation to tackle the problem of rapidly dwindling fish stocks due to overfishing and poaching, officials said today.

Senior officials from 13 countries including China and Japan attended the opening of a meeting in Jakarta to prepare for next year's regional conference to promote responsible fishing practices co-hosted by Indonesia and Australia.

“We have to conserve our fishery resources not only for this generation but for the generations to come,” Indonesian Marine Affairs and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numberi said at the opening of the meeting.

He cited various studies which have warned that the world's fish stocks would be depleted by the middle of the century if no measures were taken and added that illegal fishing was mainly to blame for the unsustainable fishing.

“Much of the illegal fishing is done by international crime syndicates, and not by traditional fishermen,” Mr Numberi said.

Australian ambassador Bill Farmer said regional cooperation was needed to tackle the problem of dwindling fish stocks.

“We do face a common issue, the depletion of fishery stocks... many of us have concerns over the future of fisheries,” Mr Farmer said in his opening speech.

Mr Farmer said the meeting and the conference next year would talks about ways to promote sustainable, responsible fishing in the region and added that “joint action is the best way for us to address this problem.”

“We have to address unsustainable (fishing) practices, we have to address illegal practices,” he said, adding that he hoped regional cooperation would produce “practicable, workable solutions over time”.

The conference is due to address priority areas, including assessment of fish stocks and the scope of over-fishing and illegal fishing in the region as well as finding best practices to reduce them.

The two-day meeting this week will assess priority areas for capacity building and the development of a regional monitoring, control and surveillance network.

Some 45 officials from Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam and several observer groups are taking part in the meeting.