At the request of the Norwegian Government, the NFFO has presented the fishing industry’s views to what many regard as the temple of conservation – the Trondheim conference on biodiversity.
The conference is hosted by the Norwegian Government, in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD), the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).
In the past we have seen many conservation initiatives emerge from such high level conferences and so it is absolutely essential that fishermen’s views are heard where and when it counts.
The NFFO was able to reinforce the point that sustainable use of the marine environment rather than a purist environmental agenda should be the goal for fisheries managers, environmentalists, and the fishing industry together.
We were also able to make the point that passing legislation is one thing but successful implementation of conservation measures is something else. The history of the Common Fisheries Policy until recently has been one in which all the emphasis has been on the former, with insufficient attention to the latter.
Measures are most successful when they are considered legitimate by the people to which they apply. Achieving this in fisheries requires a collaborative approach through industry participation in the design of measures and good information on which to base the measures. The Federation was able to describe to the conference the many positive initiatives than make this collaboration a reality. Including:
*Fisheries Science Partnerships
*The work of the regional advisory councils
*Precise mapping of fishing activity using fishermen’s own electronic plotter data
The full text of the NFFO’s presentation is reproduced her below.
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