The chairman of the working group, Ambassador Barry Faure, said illegal, unreported and unregulated, or IUU, fishing is detrimental to fishing fleets operating legally in developing countries where fisheries played an important role in national economies.
The working group said more than 50 of the 79 ACP states are coastal countries with important coastal fishing communities and more than 60 ACP states exported fisheries products, both from maritime and inland fisheries and aquaculture.
“This proves that the fisheries sector plays a key role for ACP countries in terms of food security and poverty reduction, economic growth and job creation, as well as foreign exchange earnings,” they said.
“It is commonly recognized that IUU fishing causes three major types of negative effects. These include environmental concerns threatening the sustainability of fish stocks and marine biodiversity; economic losses to fishing fleets operating legally and confronted with unfair competition; and social concerns for coastal communities where fish may represent a major source of food supply,” they added.
Faure said for ACP states, the effects of IUU fishing are the reduction of the stock capacity and the threat to food security.
He said additional negative effects are the reduction of access to European Union markets.
Within the framework of the ACP-EU joint parliamentary assembly assessment of the importance of the fisheries sector for ACP countries, a fact-finding mission was conducted in Seychelles last April.
One of the conclusions was that coordination between the different ACP regions in the domain of fisheries was lacking.
A crucial need to establish an ACP information, monitoring and coordination mechanism on fisheries issues was also highlighted.
The two key issues discussed were IUU fishing and the challenges of the implementation of the EU action plan against IUU fishing as highlighted in the report adopted by the European Parliament.
