Respondents were asked in Part 1 of the Questionnaire to indicate whether certain measures to combat IUU fishing are of low, medium or high effectiveness. The measures fell within the categories of law and policy, flag State responsibilities, catch determination and verification, access by foreign fishing vessels, internationally agreed market related measures and national plans of actions (NPOAs) to combat IUU fishing. The responses are indicated on the attached questionnaire, and a summary is given below.
The other two Parts of the questionnaire relate to the types, extent and impact of IUU fishing and constraints and solutions for combating IUU fishing activities in the GFCM region. Responses to these Parts are more particular to individual countries and have not been summarized.
Nine GFCM Members responded: Algeria, Egypt, Italy, Lebanon, Libya, Japan, Syria, Turkey and the EU.
Law and policy
Most Members consider that their laws relating to the following are of low to medium effectiveness:
fishing information[179]
port inspection[180]
high seas inspections[181]
powers of enforcement officers[182]
use of technologies such as VMS[183]
adequate offences, fines[184]
Several respondents have indicated that they do not have very effective mechanisms for inspection at sea[185] or inspection in port[186], but they generally expressed a medium to high level of priority for adopting a policy to combat IUU fishing.[187]
However, four respondents indicated that each of the following measures were highly effective:
control of national persons
control of national vessels
vessel information
Flag state responsibilities
Six respondents[188] considered the information maintained on their country’s register of fishing vessels to be comprehensive, indicating this is a highly effective measure being taken by GFCM Members. Five respondents designated the extent to which they consider IUU fishing to be a disqualification for the registration of fishing vessels as highly effective.[189]
However, the high seas fishing data that respondents should submit to FAO was in general considered to be inapplicable.[190]
Catch determination and verification
In general, catch verification procedures were considered to be of low or medium effectiveness[191], with only four respondents stating that their mechanisms to determine the catch of their flag vessels as highly effective, and three (including the EU and Japan) designating their catch verification procedures were highly effective.
Access by foreign fishing vessels
In general the following measures in respect of foreign fishing vessels were considered to be inapplicable:
authorization from the flag State to fish in waters beyond national jurisdiction[192]
prohibition of access to vessels with a history of IUU fishing[193]
maintaining a record of foreign vessels authorized to fish[194]
requiring VMS for foreign fishing vessels[195]
Most respondents indicated low or medium effectiveness for the following measures, and many indicated that they are inapplicable:
taking effective action against vessels in port where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting IUU fishing
cooperating through schemes of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) to prevent landings, transshipment of IUU caught fish.[196]
Port state measures
Responses under the category of Port State measures were almost evenly divided between highly effective and N/A, with the latter receiving most responses. Five respondents indicated N/A for effective action against vessels in port where there are reasonable grounds for suspecting IUU fishing, and four indicated N/A to each of implementing information requirements on the fishing trip and quantity of fish on board and cooperation through RFMOs on schemes to prevent landings and transshipments of IUU caught fish.
"Highly effective" was indicated by five respondents in relation to the measure requiring vessels seeking entry into port to provide a copy of the authorization to fish, and by four respondents regarding requirements for such vessels to provide details of the fishing trip and quantities of fish on board.
Internationally agreed market related measures
Three respondents indicated internationally agreed market related measures were highly effective, three checked "N/A", two ranked the measures as medium and one as low.
NPOA-IUU
The priority in respondents’ countries for formulating and adopting an NPOA-IUU differed across the board, with three indicating "low", two indicating "medium", three ranking the priority as "high" and one as "N/A".
Summary of responses
For the summary of responses, please see Tables 3 - 5 (above).
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[178] The tables showing
the answers to the questionnaires that were included in this section (document
produced after the Workshop) are the same ones as those found in the original
working document; please consult Tables 5 - 7, pp. 61 - 65, above. [179] Low (2), medium (4), N/A (1) [180] Low (4), medium (1), N/A (3) [181] Low (1), medium (5), N/A (0) [182] Low (1), medium (5), N/A (0) [183] Low (2), medium (2), N/A (3) [184] Low (1), medium (4), N/A (2) [185] Low (1), medium (4), N/A/(3) [186] Low (2), medium (3), N/A (2) [187] Low (1), medium (4) high (3) [188] Medium (2) N/A (1) [189] Low (1) and N/A (3) [190] Low (1), N/A(5) [191] Low (3), medium (2), N/A (1) [192] N/A (7) [193] N/A (7) [194] Medium (1), N/A (5) [195] Medium (1), N/A (6) [196] Low (1), medium (1), N/A (4) |
