How the new BBNJ Agreement could support PSIDS tuna fisheries

Some high seas, yesterday

BBNJ - the UN process for developing an additional Implementing Agreement under the International Law of the Sea to manage the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in (marine) areas beyond national jurisdiction - evokes fear and loathing among some fisheries people.

"But there are already two Implementing Agreements under the Law of the Sea that cover Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction", 

we say, and 

"The UN Fish Stocks Agreement is a progressive instrument for conserving and managing fisheries of highly migratory, transboundary, or purely high seas fishery stocks and already provides a framework for best-practice management of high seas fisheries by Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs)".

Trouble is, RFMOs really only look after fished fish, and there are a LOT more fish in the sea than the fish that are fished. Sure, there are some useful habitat protection measures being developed by benthic RFMOs, but for fisheries in the water column RFMOs have not progressed much beyond ad-hoc gear modifications and vague arm-waving when to comes to the conservation of non-target species. 

The BBNJ Agreement is developing a framework for the application of Ecological Impact Assessments, the management of Marine Genetic Resources and the application of "Area-Based Management Tools including Marine Protected Areas" in areas beyond national jurisdiction. It is this last one - MPAs - that is the main reason for querulous reactions in the fisheries sector.

When I went to my first BBNJ meeting in 2014 it was part of my job as Director of the Fisheries Management Division of the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency. I needed to know more about the process in order to advise Pacific Island fisheries departments how to make sure that the BBNJ would not undermine their best interests. Oceanic fisheries are of crucial economic importance to several Pacific Island countries, and oceanic fisheries would appear to be the main losers from the establishment of high seas MPAs.

However, at the meeting in New York I realised that many of the ideas being expressed - once the hyperbole had been stripped away - were not a million miles away from some of the ideas being kicked around in Pacific Island tuna fisheries meetings. The Parties to the Nauru Agreement had already closed down two western Pacific high seas pockets to purse-seining, and FFA SIDS were locked in an increasingly difficult struggle with WCPFC fishing nations to direct the attention of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission towards what we felt to be one of its main reasons for existence - to limit and coordinate management of the high seas fisheries that are undermining the more conservative intergovernmental tuna fisheries management arrangements within FFA SIDS Exclusive Economic Zones. 

Or, as one Pacific Island fisheries fisheries officer more colourfully put it: "Freeloaders sitting just outside our borders, picking off the fruits of our labour". 

Although Pacific SIDS are developing countries by definition - the tuna fisheries in the tropical Pacific Islands region are not developing. They are mature, and are now running up against the realities of nature and economics. It is difficult for PSIDS governments to tell local fishing businesses to limit their activities in the interests of maintaining a fishable biomass, or to spend money on hosting observers, installing better reporting systems and modifying gear to avoid bycatch, when foreign vessels fishing the same stocks on the high seas are held to a much lower standard by their flag States (with a few notable, high-quality exceptions).

I verbally advised FFA Fisheries Ministers at their next meeting that - if their national positions were developed carefully in New York - the BBNJ could actually assist them in achieving some of their goals for the western and central tropical Pacific tuna fishery. And I continued to provide an information link between PSIDS negotiators in New York and their national fisheries administrations for several years.

When I left FFA I had more time to document what positions had been taken concerning the high seas over the years by Pacific Island Fisheries authorities and to illustrate how much of this was compatible with the BBNJ principles that were being developed by their representatives in New York. I felt that such a compendium of material would be valuable to the PSIDS BBNJ negotiators who are not always fully aware of what actions and positions are being taken in specific sectors back home. In New York they are bombarded from all sides with information from global lobbyists and developed country governments, but not so much from capitals. And I thought it would also be useful to PSIDS fisheries managers themselves - both as an aide-memoire about stances they had taken, initiated or supported in the past concerning tuna fisheries and the high seas, and to explain some of the potential implications of the BBNJ process for them.

I circulated this to PSIDS fisheries heads and to PSIDS UN negotiators last year. But I thought it might be useful to make it more widely available now with the 4th BBNJ Conference Session due to start in a few days time after a two-year COVID-induced delay.

• The full document itself can be downloaded from here.
• And a two-page summary (not very professionally formatted) is here
• The document is based on public domain written material or data, and occasionally on the notes I have taken about statements made at meetings, or personal communications. These are not my ideas. I'm just putting together what has been said by others.
• And yes, I'm aware that there are some folks whose interests will NOT be best served by restrictions on the use of the high seas for fishing. Tell me about it, if you want.
• Finally, I'm told you can watch the actual BBNJ sessions through this link to the United Nations Web TV website - http://webtv.un.org/. Starts Monday 7th March 2022, 10:00hrs in New York.