 Excellencies, distinguished delegates, participants, dear colleagues, we'd like to welcome you to this FAO Engineering at Fisheries Trade Talks session today, Organizing Collaboration with our colleagues from the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. We appreciate your support and interest in FAO's work. And as you already know, when it comes to trade, FAO supports its member efforts to formulate policies conducive to improved food security by strengthening evidence and analysis. We provide capacity development and we facilitate a neutral dialogue away from the negotiating table. Last year, also because of what you achieved at the MC12, we included the topic of fisheries in our trade talks, which were, to that point, focused on agriculture. And we added fisheries to enhance the understanding of the current state of global fisheries and aquaculture, as well as to inform on the existing and emerging FAO knowledge and tools for transforming aquatic food systems and promoting their responsible and sustainable management. Now, let me share a couple of points regarding today's topic. The 2030 Agenda, as you know, enfasurizes the importance of regional dimensions, economic integration and interconnectivity towards sustainable development. Today, our world is facing various challenges exacerbated by the over-exploitation of natural resources and the impact of climate change with the compound effects on food security and policy. Therefore, establishing the collaborative and cooperative framework to promote global cooperation and foster international and regional initiatives to secure responsible and sustainable fisheries and aquaculture is more relevant than ever. Promoting cooperative fisheries and aquaculture developments can provide opportunities to address common concerns with a common basis and requirements, create synergies, mainstream global objectives in core capacities and functioning, identify good practices and work efficiently for sustainable development. With this background, this addition of the FAO and Geneva Fisheries Trade Talks will provide an opportunity to elaborate on the role of the regional fisheries management organization on ocean governance in general and fisheries sustainability in particular, including the role in supporting the implementation of the WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies adopted last year at the WTO MC12. Today's session is actually taking place in a very timely context in terms of ocean governance and conservation of fisheries resources. Let me remind you in that context of some of the important dates observed or which will be observed this month in terms of oceans and sustainability. As you were very well known, on the 5th of June, we have been observing the international day of the fight against illegal unreported and unregulated fishing. On 8th June, the World Ocean Day was celebrated. This week will mark the first anniversary of the WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies adopted last year at the 12th Ministerial Conference. Next week, very importantly, the Intergovernmental Conference on an International Legally Binding Instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction will conclude its work with the adoption of the agreement in New York. I also believe that today's session will be instrumental in informing members in their efforts in relation to the WTO agreement on fisheries subsidies and in the second wave of negotiation ongoing to achieve a comprehensive agreement. Now, let me really go to the point where you all came to this and to hear from our speakers. And first, I'd like to introduce to you Mr. Piro Manini. Mr. Manini is a senior officer in the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Division. And Ms. Aurora Mateos, who is the Fisheries Policy and International Institution Expert in Fisheries and Aquaculture, also in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division at the FAO Department. Piro and Aurora, of course, we are very happy to have you with us today and I should say that Piro, for those who are following the MC12, Piro was working for over a year, eight months with WTO in preparing for the first agreement which he reached last year, so he was based here for some time. Today we are also very pleased to be joined virtually by Mr. Cami Manel. Mr. Manel is the Executive Secretary of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, ICAT. And by Mr. Alastair McFarlane, Mr. McFarlane is the Senior International Fisheries Advisor at the Ministry for Primary Industries of New Zealand. We'd like to welcome both of you very warmly and a special thank you to Mr. McFarlane who is joining from New Zealand and therefore is already there in that part of the world. Before giving the floor to Piro and Aurora, I would like to share with you the usual housekeeping thing to say that of course this is an hybrid event. We have about 50 participants online today and this is through the Zoom platform. The event will be in English only with no interpretation. We have reserved of course some time at the end of the session and we would like to invite you to ask your question using the Q&A module, of course indicating your affiliation. And we'll try to accommodate as many questions as possible before the end of the session. So that's it from my part and now I would like to give the floor to Piro and Aurora for their presentation. Piro, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you Dominique and thank you for the kind invitation. We are really very pleased to be here with you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, colleagues, so good morning or good afternoon or good evening. And it's a pleasure just to share with you this presentation on basically focus on the role of the Regional Vicious Management Organization which now I'll try to share my screen. She's always a critical moment, but at least it was it. Okay, I hope that is, yeah, very well. So the topic of the presentation is that the Mariners behind National Judicial and the role of Regional Fisheries Management Organization and like also to add the role of a fellow in supporting and working with Regional Fisheries Management Organization. This presentation will be prepared by Aurora Matheus and myself. So I'll start with something the power is familiar to the most of you just to refresh our mind. These are the maritime zones according to the gloss. If you see from this picture from the left to the right, you can see of course the territorial sea. And then which are the full sovereignty of coastal states, then the economic exclusive zone up to 200 miles that may be extended to include the so-called extended continental shelf. And then after that I see which is the topic of our talk today. Again, fishery resources, I mean alcohol across the system and they support the relevant fisheries and then you can see, I mean I hope this slide is quite clear. We have with the first red circle the case of the typical highly migratory species, the tuna. They're able to migrate over large areas in the IC as well as in areas within national jurisdiction. Then you have another typology which is the strutting species with extensive distribution. In this case of some sharp species, species with number three, the only accord in the IC and support fishes in the IC. In this case of the Mercer resources, then the typical pelagic strutting species says some case of sardines. Just to give you an example, mostly within the IC, but also moving according to the life cycle and the number of parameters also into the IC. Then the Mercer strutting species. The Mercer meaning those species that are not pelagic, that don't not live within the water column, but they live in contact with the bottom of the sea. And then in the case, then the number of species, in the case of squids. And so when I say squid, you have to consider the squid fisheries, that's a transboundary stocks. As you can see, they are exploited by in this case at least two countries. And then with the seven, again, other kind of squids that they spend the most of their life or the distribution they see, but the part also within the EZ. So the territorial waters of the country, this again may depend on environmental factors, may depend on the life cycle of the species, and so on. And to conclude the strutting stock, which even distribution. Of course, it's very, very nice from a biological point of view, but it means that all the support fisheries, specific fisheries that need and they have to be managed. Now, we have in mind that the ability of fishing subsidies, which is the most recent agreement related to fisheries and of a legally binding nature. But, I mean, the regulatory frameworks for the fisheries, I mean, it's based on the portfolio of instrumentals. They are available and they are already there. Basically, all start with, and I would like to refer now to the binding legal instruments starting with the Jung Klos, which is the mother of the instrument of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. And it's implementing agreement. So the United Nations FISTOC agreement, we'll talk about it in a moment. The FAO compliance agreement, the last agreement, FAO agreement on post-state measure, which is binding, and it was just the last one prior to the regulatory agreement on fisheries subsidies. I'm dedicated to FOS in 2015 or 16. I don't remember now, but I'm pleased to inform you that there are already more than 100 countries have ratified. And then there is another in addition, I mean, agreements related to the Convention on biological diversity, this is the side, this is the Convention on Megatourism. I don't know if it's readable, just to give you an idea, the United Nations FISTOC agreement, again, is an implementing agreement on the Jung Klos on binding nature. So it's about the management for the long-term conservation and sustainable use of shredding fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks in the AB&J is about the protection of biodiversity in the marine environment, the impact of fishing and other human activities on target stock and their ecosystem is about minimizing the impact of abundant deer reduction by catch, support the application of the precautionary approach. It's about this very important, the use of flex state, post-state and cooperation amongst states. Later, I will also expand also on market-state and into this picture, and the role it's the people that support the creation and the role of the Jung Fisheries Management Organization. In addition, there is another family of instruments that are very important. They are non-binding, they are monitoring nature, but they are extremely relevant. And online, just to mention here, the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, adopted by the FAO Council in 1995, is non-binding by the provision, the indication and many parts of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries have been included in the National Fisheries Association of many countries across the world. And you can see these that generate a number of international plans of action focused on superb sharks, capacity and management, are you fishing, and they can put guidelines. And then again, as a non-binding, there are a number of the Telesolutions of the General Assembly in order to guideline on the commission on biodiversity and so on, or non-binding nature, but still an element of the international fishery policies. So, let's focus then on the origin and the rational support in regional fishery bodies. Let's first consider the non-binding instrument, the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, article 7. It's very clear, 7-1-3, referring to transboundary stocks, trading-free stocks, argumentary-free stocks, basically on shared stocks. It states that where these stocks are supported by two or more states, the state concern should cooperate to ensure effective conservation and management of resources, so the key word is cooperation. These should be achieved where appropriate through the establishment of a bilateral subregional or regional fisheries organization or arrangement. This is a non-binding. Then, from another angle, and according to the international law, we may wish to refresh and to recall ourselves that the state freedom to sail fishing vessels, when they're flagged on the IC, is limited to some condition. Fluid state, and here I'm focusing on the responsibility, and due to the fluid state, they have the primary responsibility for controlling the fishery activities or their vessel, both within the AZ, which of course is logical, as well on the IC. Fluid and coastal state have the duty to cooperate, and this is the language that comes from the Junglos, so as to ensure fishery sustainability and stop conservation, including the international community is considered as a main mechanism for organizing this cooperative management history of international bodies, such as regional fisheries management organization, and therefore the Convention of the Law of the Sea invites states to create such organization where they do not exist, and this is continually reiterated over the years. The international community took this indication very seriously because you can see here, over the years, and in competence, concurrence with the establishment of a fishery instrument, the number of regional fisheries bodies that have been established across the world. It's been increasing. Just to clarify the language that I'm using. I'm using the term regional fishery bodies to include both regional fisheries advisory body that have a role to provide technical scientific advice to the member, but their advice is not binding. And regional fisheries management organization that have the possibility to formulate and adopt conservation and management measure for fisheries that are binding upon the contract impacting also property non-contracting. So you can see an important increase in number of this regional mechanism. And this is the situation that may be familiar with this figure. This is the situation out there. I mean, there is quite a universe of regional mechanism involving many countries from all across the world. How much does it work as a matter of debate and an important element to consider also for the future because these are the pillar of the implementation of fishery policies across the oceans. But as I say, it's a universe and it's very heterogeneous. We have starting from the top to the bottom. If we go to the screen that is the regional fishery body, those that was an advisory coordination role, the regional fishery advisory body versus those who have a regional fisheries regulatory management mandate. Those focusing on Indian water fisheries, those on the marine capture fisheries or boat, those focusing on having the mandate capture fisheries and is not much known. It's quite an important percentage focusing also on aquaculture or even both capture fisheries and aquaculture. Many are also called generic or geographic nature, meaning they have a mandate to manage all the fisheries resources in the regulatory area. Others are species specific, the salmon bodies, the tuna bodies and so on. They have a mandate to manage specific species and the stock specific species. Eleven of them have been established under the FAO framework, so that FAO bodies. And there are also, of course, I'm talking about more than 50 bodies outside the FAO, still with FAO, with their role as a depository often or as a property entity. And the recent trend is to establish new bodies outside the FAO. I'm sorry they're not particularly readable, but this table is an idea about the regional fisheries management organization we have at the moment. They mandate either species specific or generic, and what is important, they coverage all regulatory areas. So you may notice that the tuna body is a regulatory area which is by mandate. It includes the occurrence area of the stock, the EZ and the IC, the geographic one or the generic one. Normally it's in many decades only on the IC, but with some exception, they include also the EZ. Regional Fisheries Management Organization of species specific nature. We demand it to manage fisheries targeting specific species of stock. I would like to bring a rotation to the tuna bodies, and you can see that we have a very good coverage of from all across the world. Tuna bodies is a basic program. They fight tuna bodies, all the oceans, all the world. If we have a look to the current geographical distribution of the Regional Fisheries Management Organization of generic nature, they mandate to regulate the fishery exploiting, fishery resourcing the regulatory area. You will see the pattern is a bit different. It's a good coverage, and there are also important areas of the ocean, where there are not such a system, referring to the generic one. And then a reality which is very relevant, in my opinion, should be considered, is the current coverage of Regional Fisheries Advisory Body. They do not adopt binding conservation management measures, but they provide technical scientific advice to their members. They have an important role when it comes to capacity building and so on. And in some cases, they almost fill the gaps that we noticed before in the other slide concerning the generic Regional Fisheries Management Organization. Now, FAO historically is supporting and working with Regional Fisheries bodies. Obviously, being Regional Fisheries bodies, a key player when it comes to fisheries management, which is, as you know, one of the mandate of the organization. And how we are doing this, providing technical and administrative support to our Regional Fisheries bodies, the one established under the provision of the FAO Constitution, promoting collaboration and consultation among all the Regional Fisheries bodies for arrangement of matters of more concern. I'm going to develop this point in a moment, facilitating the meetings of Regional Fisheries bodies and the Management Organization. The FAO has committed to cooperate to assist to report non-status and trend of fisheries and then report to EAS with the United Nations and International Regional Organization regarding that collection and dissemination information. Finally, the FAO is also involved when requested by the member in the process of establishing new Regional Fisheries bodies, if so requested. The FAO is supporting a unique tool which is gaining momentum visibility during the last few years that is the so-called Regional Fisheries Body Secretariat Network. It's not the FAO body. It's supported by the FAO that provide venue for the meetings and the secretariat. And this is the network of secretariats of Regional Fisheries bodies. So it's an entity that doesn't deal with policy issue but with technical issue concerning how Regional Fisheries bodies carry out their duties and their work. This is a unique coordination mechanism, absolutely. We're bringing together at the moment 58 key Fisheries and Aquaculture players from across the globe. It has been established 20 years ago with the scope of promoting sustainable Fisheries and Aquaculture to support and fostering the learning and sharing of best practices on critical issue of common concerns among Regional Fisheries bodies to facilitate the unlocking of the potential Regional Cooperation for Regional Global Fisheries Governance. And then to focus on communication and visibility of the Regional Fisheries Body work to facilitate also the understanding of the work of Regional Fisheries bodies but not only within the community, officially professional and Regional Fisheries bodies themselves but also to the public and civil society which we believe is quite important. You can see the, if you organize a very old Global Meeting of the RSN and as you can see how the participation has been increasing over the years. Basically now we have every time in occasion of the Committee on Fisheries in a DOC session at the RSN and we have up to 80% Regional Fisheries bodies after this session. This is any platform that may have an important role in the future certainly as of the moment. These are some steps during the RSN and during its life I just think to the attention that together reflect and accommodate the need of a modern Fisheries policy instrument and the trends in Fisheries Management during the last session and so referenced and the rule of procedure have been revised and amended. What kind of products through the RSN and the Fish and Aquaculture Division of the VEOM and the typical technical publication as it is one which summarized the performance of the work of Regional Fisheries bodies and by the body during the last basically 20 years there is a magazine which is entirely contributed by the Regional Fisheries Body Secretariat which is again in peculiarity and visibility that are monographic studies that have been prepared that have been video in order to reach the public and to let the international community and the wider public to know about the role and the functioning of the multilateral governance Fisheries this video was presented at the UN Headquarters a couple of years ago a kind of publication and you can see here for instance the last issue of the RSN magazine which is on the ecosystem approach to Fisheries. Then we have examples of how through the RSN Regional Fisheries Body they cooperated at the time of the COVID thanks to this network it was possible and all this has been published to assess almost real time the impact of COVID on the functioning of this funding and then therefore on the international governance of Fisheries at the beginning of the COVID and after one year all this was possible thanks to the Regional Fisheries Body cooperating through the RSN and with an FAO and analytical studies I'm not going to details but the kind of the number of fish stocks which are regularly assessed the number of Fisheries how many fish are managed by the RSMOS the VMS system in place and so on the level of cooperation all this is in the technical publication I've shown to you before very important when we talk about Regional Fisheries Body in particular management organization there is an important tool that international community has developed which is the performance review is the practice for the Regional Fisheries Management Organization to carry out standard performance review to assess the performance sorry for the repetition provided a recommendation that and this review are public the most of them provided a recommendation to better to advise that most of better work and FAO working Regional Fisheries Body use also to make kind of a compilation summarization of what are the outcome of the performance review and the follow up action they've been taken or they have not been taken and now just going another important area which is the last part on my talk is that the the fish stock agreement review conference has been reiterating over the years the need to display the Regional Fisheries Body so on the screen they should cooperate among themselves it makes sense that they cooperate to optimize resources because of the distribution of stocks and so on the Committee on Fisheries Development which is the most important forum when it goes to fishing and aquaculture policy and in several occasions and continuously highlight the key role of Regional Fisheries Management Organization advisory bodies in combating fishing and therefore the conservation and management of fisheries and then forge the most increased cooperation the central role of these bodies to implement international fishing instruments the role they may have to support the spent and fisheries science for instance in addition to Fisheries Management and monitoring of both national and regional level and therefore they should cooperate and indeed starting from last year the Fish and Aquaculture Division of the FAO together with the bodies started to develop pilot experience bringing together Regional Fisheries Body from certain regions Indian Ocean for instance Management Organization advisory body and or from the Central-Eastern Atlantic where bringing together bodies to highlight identify areas where there is a good merit and scope to cooperate to be more effective to deliver a better service to the member countries of cooperating countries to avoid also waste of resources and also to better capture certain ecosystem dynamics and species productivity as you can see for instance from the Atlantic there is a plate of bodies at the regional level, sub-regional level where coordination is certainly necessary it's also necessary for another consideration this is the West Africa coastal countries on developing countries as you can see one member in the region to more than a region one region officially bodies this is a coastal and probably a could be better way to improve the services this country may have from the membership to the membership because of the multiple membership therefore more coordination and cooperation this first experience has been summarized in this publication that has been presented to them in New York last month so concluding my part is evident that the advisory body management organization is a key role in regional and global fisheries and even a co-culture in some cases governance promoting collaboration and joint action the mandate to discover regional fisheries advisory body management organization may be different as well as the type of measure of decision they can take and the consideration required the issues of common concern trends in the current trends in the activities and developments of advisory body management organization provide evidence of the effort made that has been made by these bodies and then of course I mean this a little bit maybe free of consideration the effectiveness performance of advisory body management organization depends on the commitment and the political will of the member advisory body and advisory body will be as much as 30 and performing as much as supported by its member management organization and advisory body we need the sphere of competence play a key role in the implementation of international fishing and fisheries rating instrument and online to conclude before giving the floor for the last few slides to Aurora just reminding that the work that the FAO has been doing to providing technical information to support the BBNJ process also in cooperation with regional fisheries bodies and you can see then that this product available in all the languages that we are the organization I mean has been informing delegates and negotiates for the BBNJ about what the FAO is doing what the FAO can provide at the technical level within our mandate to support the negotiation and the future implementation in this case of the BBNJ thank you very much dear thank you very much distinguished delegates and our colleagues now we after the presentation of my colleague let's go to how to put together FAO, RFMOs and the agreement of fisheries subsidies so let's get first the whole picture as you know better than me there are 164 WTO members most of them are party to one RFMO which means 80% which is 132 states if we go further we find we find that there are 74 WTO members parties to more than one RFMO which is almost half of the World Trade Organization which is the role that FAO plays in all of this so Piero has been anticipating part of that in total we have 22 RFMOs no more no less this regional fisheries management organization half of them have been traded by FAO under the power constitution and the rest of them which is 11 are part of the regional fisheries by the secretaries network so basically when you think of RFMOs you have to think of FAO not only because half of them have been traded under the power constitution but because they are putting together by this network and this is extremely relevant to several risks not only because Piero is the secretary of the recent but not only because the RFMOs role in the conservation management measure and they are able to make binding decisions not because the areas within the regulatory competence of RFMOs include more than 90% of the areas beyond national jurisdiction so you saw the map before right the map of these world oceans so 90% of that is under the mandate of the RFMOs the areas beyond national jurisdiction I just for recalling and these data are given by Jeff areas beyond national jurisdiction represents 70-64% of the oceans it means 40% of the surface of the planet and 95% of the volume next week when this agreement will be adopted I don't know if it will be the final form and it's so important because most of the planet will be decided will be regulated once approved in this future agreement and that's why negotiators in the WUTO of Piero Lomi this personal comment has been so smart RFMOs they have been very smart and very practical because now thanks to this agreement RFMOs are going to play a key role why because they have the tools for doing so they have the mandate, they have the tools, they have the experience so in this agreement there are three key articles RFMOs play a key role the first of them they have the authority the player and the prohibition to subsidize vessels or operators that are subject to IOU so it means the determination of this IOU can be made by RFMOs the second which is an article for is that RFMOs play a key role in how to spot the overfished areas and the operators so imagine how much these people have to say on this and finally a more interesting it's an article 5 where the prohibition to subsidize fishing under unregulated high seas management measures applies and there is no RFMOs can play so it's a way to penalize this situation so can you see there are three areas where RFMOs can play let's say a prohibition then on this next slide then we have the second part on this slide is that RFMOs are also considered another part of the agreement for example in transparency why because the agreement is confident on the information that is going to be provided by RFMOs so RFMOs are going to report believe me they have the means too then they also play a role in the institutional arrangements stated in article 9 why because the committee shall maintain close contact with the FLO but also with the relevant RFMOs and finally are not less important in the final permissions article 11 states that nothing in this agreement shall imply that a member is bound by measures or decisions or recognizes any RFMOs which is not party or not cooperating party it makes sense why because by the end of the day you are the sovereignty states and the sovereignty can never be touched by no means despite the huge role that now RFMOs are going to play the sovereignty states have to be considered and primarily taken into account let me close this presentation by recalling one letter that maybe you remember before MC 12 the review the magazine is the science published a letter by 300 prominent scientists which encourage member states to sign and adopt the agreement it was made a few months before MC 12 and they closed the letter with this line WTO members must recognize their political mandate to protect the health of the ocean and well-being of society I assure you that if you go to any basic text any policy text of any RFMO you will find those lines that's why they are this coherence and this match between many RFMOs and of course thank you very much for your attention thank you so much Aurora thank you so much Pierrot for this very comprehensive and informative presentation just to say that I've seen people taking pictures of sites etc we will make sure that you get all the participants and all those who have registered to the event and got all the material already a number of questions coming up in the Q&A module we will distribute these questions at the end of the session but I would like to encourage you to keep asking your questions so that we will respond to exactly what you want and not use my generic spare questions that I have in case there is none so there are many questions about that but now I think we will be moving to the panel discussion and where we will hear more about perspective and experience from our speakers on the role of RFMOs in the region and global ocean governance and fisheries sustainability and first we are going to Mr. Manel and Mr. Manel will provide international permission for the conservation of Atlantic tunas on the role of RFMOs in ocean governance and fisheries sustainability Mr. Manel, the floor is yours Okay, good morning, good afternoon thank you very much Dominic for this invitation and also for our team for giving us the opportunity to get more involved in this discussions so I would like to share with all of you some views or information on ICOT on what we are doing as an organization so we started since 57 years ago so we just celebrated our birthday Mr. Manel, can you please speak closer to the mic because I don't know whether you can hear me sorry can you raise your voice a little bit perhaps okay so I don't know I'm quite very close to the mic of my headset maybe I don't understand the technical problem we are having please tell me that you can hear me loud and clear now it's better, keep raising your voice so I will be shouting then thank you okay thank you very much so I will say that we just celebrated our 57th anniversary exactly one month ago so 14th of May so in 1966 we had our convention so that convention the amendment has been adopted by the commission in 2019 and is being adopted with a little number of ratifications so we will have a new one in which we have more incorporated the ecosystem approach and we have broadened our scope of species coverage going to large sharks oceanic ones and also we have been implementing more and more so the ecosystem approach to fisheries so those were necessary changes, amendments mainly in the new convention amendment and so we are now 52 contracting parties with another 5 cooperating because we have that status so we are now 3 contracting members in total we are 57 CPCs and our main objective is to maintain the population of tuna and tuna-like species I will come back to some details about the tuna-like species but to maintain their population for food and other purposes this is what we are working on every day and also we are covering more than close to 40 species now and also many shark species although we did not they were not formally embedded in the first convention now we are having the ratification of a number of CPCs so we are taking measures on other also other by-cut species like seabirds and sea turtles also we are working on those and of course in total so at the time being we are having around 150 reporting requirements I will come back to that very briefly but also I will come to the point related to the S&P and the scientific one and we have also a lot of around 18,000 that could in our records and that could significantly increase during a certain fishing season so how we are an organization that is meeting two years also so meaning that we have on an annual basis we have a meeting either it is a regular meeting or a special one this year we will be welcoming you all if you wish in Cairo in November so we have also so the SCRS the Standing Committee which is and statistics which is backing or supporting all our decisions before any decision is decisions are taken we have also the conservation and management measure compliance community so which is all so meeting every time intercession and annual work the Standing Committee on Finance and Administration the permanent working group on the improvement of ICAT statistic and conservation measure we were just in Japan last week for such a meeting in order to prepare so the decisions to come this this year of course so we are having also a dialogue working group between scientists and managers that help because of the technical and difficulties challenges of the science work so the commission agreed to have a dialogue between the scientists and managers in order to better understand each other from both parts and make the decisions easier and we are having so four panels so the panel one tropical tuner the panel two so the northern tuners northern temporary tuners so the panel three thousand temporary tuners only one species and that one so the albacore thousand albacore and we have panel four with all other species so including swordfish billfishes and small tuners and of course now as we are having sharks they are taken into account there continuing to to to improve with a lot of working group for example so the and this is linked to the the fight against IUU disease which is a very strong component of our work because in any type of measures you may take if it's not properly implemented so you're losing sort of benefit of it and you will never be able to achieve any any success of course so that's why so a strong focus is put on the fight against IUU fishing so we are having for example in the bluefin tuner we're having so the electronic bluefin catcher documentation that is tracking all the bluefin tuner from catcher I mean I should say to the any restaurant or to the to the table we have a different working group that are now working so we would like we are working on extending so that catcher documentation documentation scheme to other species we had also last week a meeting on that the progress of that working group we will be having our first climate change expert groups in in in July early July in order to see how our climate is impacting we had some works at scientific level but it was not at that scope the commission which is to tackle that issue now so we are having so and a working group also and to see how we can better deal with the electronic monitoring system to support still the work on the monitoring surveillance and control measures we have the port inspection expert group for capacity building and assistance also because this is a big challenge I will be insisting on capacity building also in in this because when you are having all these many requirements so that needs a capacity behind behind in order to to implement a proper properly and abide by the different and complicated I should say because we have received many times some complaints from some cpcs that are saying that we cannot follow because it's too much we cannot technically follow because of the magnitude of of it works but it's so what it is and the commission has agreed to continue having improving so the capacity of particularly the developing countries which is something very very important for the commission and I used to give an example saying it was a quote by the later Fabio Hazin you may know from Brazil so he was saying and calling the attention of the commission saying that you need at least a master degree or a phd to be able to follow so the different requirements of the commission just insisting on the complexity of it and the need to increase the capacity of the developing countries in order to address properly so the various requirements that are taken by the commission and also we are having cooperating much and Piro has mentioned that and I think that this is an important issue so the cooperation with other organizations so we are with the similar sister organization the tuna ones we are regularly in in contact in exchanging a lot of document and practices also because we have in many cases so the same members belonging to our organization that are also members to organization so as Piro mentioned so this is a key issue and it is a regular topic in on our annual meeting so we are having a review of the cooperation and the commission is still encouraging so more and more cooperation with relevant organization to see how we further because we are working in an ecosystem you cannot be isolated we are sharing the same ocean sharing and as I said incorporating our ecosystem approach so it requires more engagement and more cooperation with other organizations that are dealing with other species also that are not covered specifically by iCAPT and so this is a key important thing and I would like just to share if you will also touch base again if I may say so with the capacity building it is a key element of our of in iCAPT because more than 75 percent of our members are from developing countries and usually over there so following properly and addressing and even respond responding regularly on a satisfactorily manner so to the various requirements I was referring to it's a big challenge it is a big challenge because we are having more than 140 so and and every year it is increasing because the commission is taking new measures adding to what previously so they have and so this is a big challenge but the commission in line with all what is being done at other international fora also encouraging this participation and even having a support budget through the meeting participation fund to encourage at least the sort of adequate participation of countries that are facing I mean budget challenges when it comes to attend relevant meetings so this we are working with those developing countries to assist as much as possible because we have a part of that regular of that meeting participation funds which is based on the regular budget and we are counting also on significant voluntary contribution from developing countries that is really helping to increase so the the capacity of developing countries but still it's not that enough we are having more and more calls but the the commission is keeping on insisting on this because it's a key element in the success or the achievement of the the different goals we are having and of course also we are to give an example of one success because if all of this has been put in place is going smoothly I just would like to share that with you there are an example of a success so we have it is our biggest one and just to show that management if conducted properly so could lead to very successful results and so this is you may know that you may notice or you may heard about it already so it is the case of the eastern and Mediterranean bluefin tuna so back to 2006 so the situation was really I'm not going to say a disaster but it was about status of the stock so and the stock were I mean qualified on the verge of collapse but unfortunately no fortunately you know so the the commission took very strong measures that was difficult for many countries and they because they have to to change internally and to face some and to take some stronger measures that are very unpopular usually because all good measures after this situation are usually not popular but the commission did manage and took had adopted a recovery plan in many years following 2008, 10, 12, 14 and until 2017 so and fortunately so the it was successful because we could have those measures taken tackled specifically capacity limitation regional observer program so join inspection scheme also with the ebcd I was referring to the electronic bluefin tuna catcher documentation scheme that was the things that made the recovery so successful and in 2018 so we had a recovery plan that changed it that that came to to do to replace so the no that recovery plan was changed to a management plan because the stock has recovered since 2018 and this was very significant and showing and it has given a lot of lessons to I mean to learn from and even now so last year so the commission adopted a management procedure in this new system of managing so the management and strategy evaluation and house control rules so we could adopt a management procedure for bluefin tuna just giving more stability and more anticipation in the management in comparison to the classical one based on just so the the stock assessment but this time we are can can I ask you to one of your last word please because I think it has been a very comprehensive presentation but we still have one speaker and then we'd like to allow some time for questions at the end okay yeah just to conclude and I would like to finish this giving this example of this bluefin tuna that we have showing that we can succeed in taking measures that are adopted by by all of us and it will be followed and a lot of lessons as I said just taken from that learned from that this experience and is kind of spilling over to other species that we are following kind of similar processes and there's some two challenges if you allow is just to improve as I said earlier so the the capacity building and also the participation in the work of the commission in meetings and in other things the active participation I should say so this is one of the challenges the commission is working and you may notice and we have noticed it from our part for example those who are participating in the BBNJ processes in other global processes are not the same that I mean delegation speaking are not the same that are participating use usually in our meeting many of them I'm not meaning that it is I mean 100 so the case of her but we have noticed many of them were not aware even of the other processes so this is a kind of a challenge that we are having in order to encourage continuity encourage the internal consultation in order to have a clear understanding of all so I would like to stop on this and hoping that we will have opportunity to discuss more about so these first elements so I wanted to share with you over to you Dominic thank you thank you thank you so much Mr Manel for such a comprehensive presentation which indeed good gives I think a very good idea of the of the activities of the of e-cat under your your leadership and and indeed your very much like your your focus among the many activities on capacity building and the whole you have in building capacities of members to to handle these other complex matters but also ending with your very concrete example of the success okay if we manage properly here is the type of success and the the eastern Mediterranean blue fin story is a very telling one one that we need to definitely publicize so thank you again and I would invite you also Mr Manel to look at the question that they've come up in the Q&A because we'll come up we'll come back to you with that as well as to our colleagues if your colleagues but now let me move to Mr McFarlane we're provided with a national perspective on New Zealand experience as a member of civil life and mobs on their own in ocean governance and sustainability Mr McFarlane the floor is yours thank you for being patient and being the last of our speaker over to you and and thank you very much and thank you for the for the opportunity to to talk about the experience from the other side of the world in the southern hemisphere and in a time zone with a 10 hour difference we're ahead of you that's that's that's our winning strategy and and dealing with this so I enjoyed the references at the beginning to the world trade organizations fisheries subsidies arrangement agreement because article 5.1 no member shall grant or maintain subsidies provided to fishing or fishing related activities outside the jurisdiction of a coastal member or a coastal non-member and outside the competence of a relevant RFMO or arrangement is an important measure in that agreement in that it recognizes that fisheries management is a responsibility of coastal states in the first instance and then can only be achieved in the high seas for the range of fisheries which you so well described by the formation of regional arrangements and where we have therefore areas of the high seas where there are no regional arrangements and that may be geographic or it may be in in relation to the competence of the RFMO and the species that the RFMOs choose to manage the other species which may be targeted or maybe bycatch species or may have been fished in areas where there are no RFMOs are effectively in the situation of non-management and in those circumstances the WTO members agreed by consensus that it was inappropriate to permit the membership to be able to provide subsidies for that sort of fishing so for New Zealand we are a member of four regional fisheries agreements and our agreements that we're involved with are the convention for the conservation of Atlantic sorry Antarctic marine living resources Kamala the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission or Convention and the convention for the conservation of southern bluefin tuna and they are very very different organizations even though their primary function and their primary purpose is very similar Kamala as an organization has its primary attention to the fisheries of the Antarctic and primarily the Antarctic high seas but its overarching interest as far as we are concerned in New Zealand is related to the two species of toothfish Patagonian toothfish and Antarctic toothfish which do occur not only in the within the Antarctic zone of convergence which is largely the area of Kamala but out in the high seas beyond that area and within the economic zones of some of the coastal states of the southern southern hemisphere and to a degree Kamala has an oversight at least as far as the trade in all toothfish species is concerned the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization was established in 2006 to manage the all of the non-tuna fisheries resources of the high seas and that includes straddling stocks in the high seas from the west coast of South America roughly from the equator south all the way across the Pacific through past New Zealand past and past the southern ocean to the very southwest tip of Australia so it's a vast area of the ocean but its primary attention currently is focused on squid on the eastern side of the Pacific along the west coast of South America the deep sea resources which are predominantly fished in and around the high seas areas near to New Zealand and Australia and increasingly an interest in the squid fisheries of the South East Atlantic South East Pacific Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission manages the highly migratory species of the Western and Central Pacific from a midpoint across the Pacific to the really the crossover zone to the Indian Ocean so it includes Indonesia and the Philippines and through to the coastal area of Southeast Asia and within that a very large part of the Western and Central Pacific area is covered by the intersecting economic zones of Pacific Island small island Pacific States and so therefore the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission governs those highly migratory resources within the economic zones of those of those member states as well as into the high seas pockets of the Western and Central Pacific and then the high seas areas in and around the South West Pacific Island States and the conservation for Southern Bluefin tuna agreement focuses almost entirely on Southern Bluefin tuna as a global species but primarily located in the Southern Hemisphere as you would expect from the Pacific South of Australia and up into the Indian Ocean and with a spawning area that occurs in Indonesia so the mandate and coverage of those organizations is different the way in which they go about their business is different but they all have a number of elements in common while also having areas of specialization and difference as well so in terms of addressing fisheries management they all define and authorize fishing and they all endeavor to set catch limits and monitor fishing activity but they don't all allocate quota among their members the stand the particular stand out of that is the is the Camelar arrangement which is really otherwise a it's a more complex agreement than just a regional fisheries management organization and Camelar doesn't like to refer to itself as a regional fisheries management organization but it does carry out those functions there is no allocation of the fishing rights for for toothfish among the parties to Camelar it's an Olympic fishery which is very tightly controlled and monitored through daily reporting and real-time reporting to the secretariat who will who run an algorithm and then and then will open and close fishery according to their calculations of how much fish has been caught quantum of catch will be with the with the number of sets which are in the water at a particular time and it's a very successful arrangement in in so doing but it does have one drawback and that is that because it's an Olympic fishery there is a tendency for the fishery to occur early in the season and to fish to the maximum allowable catch which is set at a very precautionary level and then the fishery can be over and done with in a very short period of time it's already a very small window of fishing because of the occurring in the summer ice free season which is really from the turn of the year through to early March at the latest but most of the fishing has has been completed by the end of January the the RFMOs all endeavor to address environmental impacts of fishing on endangered and threatened species other species but the South Pacific RFMO and Camelar both have particular attention to the impacts of fishing on the seafloor and the organisms that live on the seafloor so-called vulnerable marine ecosystems and as a result of that attention and in and in SPRIFMO's case they have very strict limits on where fishing can occur so it is possible for and and have been proven by by these regional arrangements for spatial management measures to be agreed and for areas of the high seas to be placed off limits to fishing and to fishing to be very very tightly confined to areas where where the potential for impact on vulnerable marine ecosystems can be minimized they also have have interests in lost and damaged gear and that's a particular concern in in Camelar which is a fishery conducted by the long line method where if gear is lost it will continue to ghost fish for until such time as the as the gear sort of finally deteriorates an emerging issue for all of the regional fisheries organizations that we're involved with is addressing climate change and the potential impact of climate change on the fisheries and this is a particular concern for the Western and Central Pacific Commission who are dealing with an expectation with with global warming and with climate change that stock abundance is likely to move it may not change markedly but it is likely to move spatially and migrate gradually eastwards and that is of considerable concern to the western Pacific island states for whom fishing activity in their economic zone under access arrangements is of of significance of considerable economic significance all of the agreements address IUU fishing in a variety of ways they all authorize fishing they all maintain records of vessels including support vessels but a number particularly Camelar and or actually Camelar and CC SPT have catch control measures and catch monitoring catch documentation and trade documentation so that they can be assured that the fish that is entering international trade has been sourced from legal and authorized sources and that it is not being contaminated by the introduction of fish that may have not been sourced from legal and authorized fisheries so they operate a gradual disappearance model to monitor the the trade both through to further processing and final anti-final market consumption and that is of interest to the western central Pacific fisheries commission who have been exploring the possibility of developing a catch certification system as well there are common issues which I'll just touch on very briefly in relation to the way in which regional fisheries organizations and this is a common problem to read or common challenge to regional fisheries organizations the world over which is how to how to go through the process of decision making all of the regional organizations that we're party to endeavor to reach agreement by consensus and some are governed entirely by a very strict interpretation of consensus and for example that applies to Camelar it only takes one member to disagree and a measure will not be adopted the spryfmo constitution on the other hand having recognized that as being a challenge for regional fisheries organizations set about a to establish within the convention text a voting procedure which can be carried by a qualified majority of members and that requires that parties who do not agree with the majority of members nonetheless while they may object are required to institute equivalent measures to the measures which have been agreed by the parties to to to the commission um the the final issue that I just want to touch on is the issue of transparency and transparency and and in that sense all of the organizations have very active websites very active publication of the data and decision making and conservation and management measures that they have agreed to so criticisms that rfmo's are closed shops and can't be seen into by by other parties and people on the outside of those organizations really cannot be sustained on the basis of the information that those regional organizations make available to anybody with an interest and I think I'll conclude at that point thank you thank you thank you indeed very much Mr McFarney for giving the news event with respect and for especially focusing on the what you see as the role of the the four rfmo's of which there are members and I think they are different in mandate coverage operational procedures but also the level of specialization and the common activities and issues on which they are they are working so thank you very much for that we we are we are almost at the end of the meeting but we are willing to to extend a little bit because they are another of a very interesting question that they've been that they've been put in the in the Q&A module but perhaps I can start here uh in the room to have a to give an advantage to those who have taken the report to the to the party this morning and so a question to from the room here and then we'll go to the the few uh Q&A so please if you can say where we are where you are from and who whom your question is addressed would be good thank you I think thank you so much thank you so much for the advantage given to me after being here so to save the time I will just ask one question though I do have more questions indeed but there will be opportunities after yes of course so I will just only focus on one question I appreciate you are mentioning the fisheries fisheries subsidies agreement of WTO and you specialize and you especially focus on the role of RMFOs in that agreement and as you know we are discussing now the OCOF the over capacity and over fishing pillar of this agreement so what do you think can be RMFO or RMFO or RFMA's role in this pillar for example like or stock assessment like uh because just now the the gentleman Mr Mara mentioned the development element in in the RFMO so how do you think RMFOs can play a role in the OCOF pillar such as stock assessment or special or needs of developing countries and so on thank you very much this is one question I'm sorry I forgot to mention I'm from the mission of China to the WTO okay one welcome one welcome and just for the colleagues here we have a almost a related question from from Norway I understand which which also refers to the OCOF and and which is about which is can the FAO assist WTO members and is there burden to communicate marine capture data and the status of fish stocks also based on info information from the RFB as well as from individual countries economies so it's a somehow related question but let's see the other comments question here no just yes one very short mission of France you mentioned that in the current agreement article eight on transparency can you just confirm the notifications will be from members exclusively but they will include information from RFMOs is that your understanding thank you okay thank you so thank you thank you for the question so yes I refer to the question of the distinction delegate from China which is also connected to a question from Norway from Norway yeah the issue Norway was stressing on the issue of the burden on data reporting which is a serious issue of course we all agreed that there is a reporting for many countries reporting in the future to the WTO reporting to the FAO officials because countries FAO is Monday to collect the statistics but they have to be reported by the countries reporting because of SDG and then monitoring and SDG 14 of course reporting because of the BBNGA treaty agreement that's that's coming not tomorrow but as soon as it went into force as you know FAO is mandate to collect statistics that can be provided by the countries one of the problems for instance is that capture fisheries statistics some countries are not requested to split them according to what is producing the within the territory and what outside this is one limiting factor that the community has been discussing certainly regional fisheries bodies I believe RFMOs if they contract imparties even mandate because NFMOs they end up just perform according to what the contract imparties ask and support together with FAO also using that platform that I show to you the regional official body secretary network may assist when it goes to easily to be departing or reporting or to standardize it also to make it usable as much as possible and on the issue of saying yes even in the future I do believe that we do believe in FAO that RFMOs you know not RFMOs are not all the same we had excellent experience here of ICAP, SPREFMO and so on we are really very interested in case other RFMOs are struggling because this is also on the the reality so some isn't a well placed even in the future to continue assisting with the determination of the status of stocks or resources within the regulatory area which is already contemplated now I mean that may need support and also may be to lobby and to work more in partnership with advisory bodies that we tend to forget this reality but why does everybody mean the potential that may be used for in in the future so I think this Rova you want to add something? Yes, just to remind you regarding the stock assessments that in the governance of RFMOs there's always a scientific committee the basic basic sub-CBI body is always the scientific committee where they put most of the resources why because they need to get the best available scientific information I remember what he just said and RFMOs are composed by states so it's the same state that sits with the FAO and the same states that take part at WTO so by the end of the day we are at the complete governmental level so we cannot start differentiating so much because by the end of the day we are talking about the same thing of this highly institutional governmental level I don't know that. Okay, yes. I would actually if you allow I have a question for Mr McFarlane because he said that New Zealand is a member to full RFMOs right and I'm not such an expert so what I don't understand yet is whether it is possible that these different RFMOs have conflicting or at least different requirements for the same species or so do you ever run into situations where you say okay well just adhere to the strictest regulation that is available for this and this? Fortunately I don't think that that that situation has arisen I don't know if it's arisen anywhere else in the world but because the mandates of the four entities are really quite different from each other that has not arisen but to give you a sort of a positive example the CCSBT the Southern Blufon Tuner arrangement obviously there are bycatch of other species from Intuna longlining than just Southern Blufon Tuner and so in that circumstance the management arrangements and measures if they apply in the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission are the ones that would apply to that activity whereas CCSBT confines its attention to Southern Blufon Tuner. Thank you. Okay, thank you very much I have a question also to Mr. Manel well there are many questions you will not be able to answer all but we will answer offline and make sure that it is correct in the report we send to everyone so this is a question from an OECD colleague who is asking Mr. Manel if you could provide more information on the work that your organization is doing on charts and the type of conversation and management measures that are adopted and if they are binding for contracting and cooperating parties anyway you got the question Mr. Manel more information on the work of your organization in relation to shark and the type of management measures that are adopted and if they are binding if they are binding for contracting and cooperating parties over to you yes good again thank you for that that question so so far what we have been doing is so the sharks were bycatch in iCat so but still before long long time we have never neglected it and it has been also a key element of the of the commission to tackle this issue because it's not I mean new or don't have to be to be neglected also so that is why many many work have been specifically directed to to sharks and so you can you would see for example that lastly so the a lot of discussion on the on on the sharks specifically and if you you allow so it is for example on the short film Marco so you have got a lot a lot of work that have been done and one year ago so they have been a conclusion of something that was not discussed and it comes that the commission came to a specifically measure on this going beyond for example so the the call for cooperation and the call for specifically calling members to to kind of cooperate more but it comes to something binding as I did not recall what we are calling we have recommendations are binding for us and all the resolutions are not binding but specifically for that those measures on sharks so you have binding measures that are that are on on those measure the I can say the species of of the the that are related to to all by cut so we have so this generic I was just so the this generic I mean measures on on those bike on those by cut and and if I may for example lastly set for example so they're different recommendation only on on the the sharks so you have all the recommendation and I as I said they are mandatory on the southern Atlantic blue blue shark uh court in association if I say every time court in association is because of we consider those as by cut court in association with I cut fisheries on uh so the uh on the Atlantic blue sharks also caught in a dentist for the course of us on north Atlantic blue shin we have the south and the north uh Atlantic blue shark that are caught in association with our uh fisheries this for the shortfin mako so we have it in 20 as I said two three years ago 2021 so a conservation measures have been taken for specifically for that uh shortfin mako and it's a recommendation binding also uh so you have uh also uh some uh elements on the uh the conservation it's a general a general one since 2018 uh so a review of the conservation and management regarding so the sharks that are generally caught within uh I cut but you have specifically so this north and south uh blue sharks and you have so the shortfin mako that are recently uh that recommendation which has recently been taken and these are if I may repeat they are binding although it's not it was not I mean on the main uh target x targeted species of our fisheries because considered as bycats but with the new uh amendment if it enter it enters into force so we will be having so those completely on board on our main uh species not considered as bycats thank you thank you very much that's a summary of a response but we can give more details later on very good very very comprehensive uh indeed and and thank you for the the clarifications well we have received many many questions many many comments we will make sure it is well captured and and that it is reflected in um in the in the report we'll be uh sending I think now we have reached the end I mean we are already 15 minutes over time so I think we'll conclude and make sure that you get the the feedback there are very important questions that have been right uh posted online we'll aim to respond to that but uh and to be honest I mean this is one of the seminars where I've seen I mean we have organized dozens of those but this is the one where the level of interaction has been very uh very intense and where there has been actually quite a large number of participants from government and mission online as well as a few here in the in the room uh today of course we have heard about the importance of of establishing collaborative and cooperative framework to promote global cooperation and foster international and regional initiatives to secure responsible fisheries and uh in this context our discussion touched upon the important role of regional fisheries management organization in fisheries management uh we also heard uh more about FAO's role in promoting and supporting RFMOs the involvement of our organization in establishing many of this organization and implementing the processes required for the sustainable management of shared resources. While concluding I would like to once again express our very sincere appreciation to Mr. Mark Farnin, Mr. Manuel Pierrot and you Aurora for for taking the effort to uh to be with us and uh and share your your perspective I think it was uh it was uh very good. Before closing I would like to make a small commercial to say that uh basically as the FAO is an office in Geneva and as I say we have the this fisheries uh dialogue series and we are planning to have the next one tentatively on the 27th of July um two uh with a focus on uh IOU fishing and we will be sharing the details of this upcoming session in due time of course and I would like also to tell you that as part of our work I mean we are producing a number of policy briefs ahead of MC 13 and uh there will be a number of policy briefs uh prepared that they are actually being prepared on uh on fisheries in the context of this package which will improve the number of agriculture and the new approach on uh fisheries uh with that I would like to thank you once more for participating in today's session and wish you a good rest of the day thank you thank you thank you okay thank you very much thank you thank you so much and thank you again Mr. Mark Farnin so late no problem bye bye