Progress has been achieved since UNCED in the negotiation of agreements and voluntary
instruments for improving the conservation and management of fishery resources and for the
protection of the marine environment. Furthermore, progress has been made in the conservation
and management of specific fishery stocks for securing the sustainable utilization of these
resources. Despite this, the decline of many fish stocks, high levels of discards, and rising marine
pollution continue. Governments should take full advantage of the challenge and opportunity
presented by the International Year of the Ocean in 1998. There is a need to continue to improve
decision-making at the national, regional and global levels. To address the need for improving global
decision-making on the marine environment,there is an urgent need for Governments to implement
decision 4/15 of the Commission on Sustainabie Development,16 in which the Commission, inter
alia, called for periodic intergovernmental reviews by the Commission of all aspects of the marine
environment and its related issues, as described in chapter 17 of Agenda 21, for which the overall
legal framework is provided by UNCLOS. There is a need for concerted action by all countries and
for improved cooperation to assist developing countries in implementing the relevant agreements
and instruments in order to participate effectively in the sustainabie use, conservation and
management of their fishery resources, as provided for in UNCLOS and other international legal
instruments and to achieve integrated coastal zone management. In that context, there is an
urgent need for:
(a) All Governments
to ratify or to accede to the relevant agreements as soon as possible
and to implement effectively such agreements as well as relevant voluntary instruments;
(b) All Governments
to implement General Assembly resolution 51/189 of 16 December
1996, including the strengthening of institutional links to be established between the
relevant intergovernmental mechanisms involved in the development and implementation of
integrated coastal zone management. Following progress on UNCLOS, and bearing in mind
principle 13 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, there is a need to
strengthen the implementation of existing international and regional agreements on marine
pollution, with a view in particular to better contingency planning, response, and liability and
compensation mechanisms;
(c) Better identification
of priorities for action at the global level to promote the conservation
and sustainabie use of the marine environment, as well as better means for integrating such
action;
(d) Further international
cooperation to support the strengthening, where needed, of regional
and subregional agreements for the protection and sustainabie use of the oceans and seas;
(e) Governments
to prevent or eliminate overfishing and excess fishing capacity through the
adoption of management measures and mechanisms to ensure the sustainabie
management and utilization of fishery resources and to undertake programmes of work to
achieve the reduction and elimination of wasteful fishing practices, wherever they may
occur, especially in relation to large-scale industrialized fishing. The emphasis given by the
Commission on Sustainabie Development at its fourth session to the importance of effective
conservation and management of fish stocks, and in particular to eliminating overfishing, in
order to identify specific steps at the national or regional levels to prevent or eliminate
excess fishing capacity, will need to be carried forward in all appropriate international
forums including, in particular, the Committee on Fisheries of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO);
(f) Governments
to consider the positive and negative impact of subsidies on the
conservation and management of fisheries through national, regional and appropriate
international organizations and, based on these analyses, to consider appropriate action;
(g) Governments
to take actions, individually and through their participation in competent
global and regional forums, to improve the quality and quantity of scientific data as a basis
for effective decisions related to the protection of the marine environment and the
conservation and management of marine living resources; in this regard, greater
international cooperation is required to assist developing countries, in particular small island
developing States, to operationalize data networks and clearing houses for information-
sharing on oceans. In this context, particular emphasis must be placed on the collection of
biological and other fisheries-related information and the resources for its collation, analysis
and dissemination.
