Ensure effective implementation of community- and ecosystem-based management, favouring small-scale fisheries. Examples of broad-scale measures include introducing true co-management with resource adjacent communities, eliminating harmful subsidies that drive overcapacity, protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems, banning the most destructive fishing gear, and combating IUU (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated) fishing.
- Build a global infrastructure for high seas governance that is fit-for-purpose. Most importantly, secure a new implementing agreement for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction under the auspices of UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea).
The IUCN’s Professor Dan Laffoley said, “What these latest reports make absolutely clear is that deferring action will increase costs in the future and lead to even greater, perhaps irreversible, losses. The UN climate report confirmed that the ocean is bearing the brunt of human-induced changes to our planet. These findings give us more cause for alarm – but also a roadmap for action. We must use it.”
The findings were published in Marine Pollution Bulletin Volume 74 Issue 2, and are available at http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0025326X/74 and also at http://www.stateoftheocean.org/research.cfm.
Source: IPSO / IUCN.
About IPSO
The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) is a unique consortium of scientists and other ocean experts, including those from the legal, communications and political arenas, created to identify the current problems affecting the global ocean, project the future outcomes of these problems, and develop workable solutions to alter the trajectory of degradation. For more information, visit www.stateoftheocean.org.
About IUCN
Founded in 1948, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is a global environmental network with more than 1,200 government and NGO member organizations, and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries. The organization publishes the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, which assesses the conservation status of species. For more information, visit www.iucn.org.
