The medal, awarded every other year by the UN\u2019s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), commends those who have served with distinction in the application of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.<\/p>\n
\u00c1rni M. Mathiesen, assistant director-general, Fisheries and Aquaculture Department of the FAO, said: \u201cSIF was selected in recognition of an excellent African example of what can be achieved to stop IUU fishing by demonstrating that a lot can be accomplished with relatively small resources through good networking, the sharing of information, regional and international cooperation, and a strong commitment to stop IUU fishing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Illegal exploitation of fisheries resources and illegal trade and processing of fish are root causes of poverty and malnutrition in developing countries. SIF works with governments and local communities to create awareness and implementation of sustainable fisheries.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the award ceremony Per Erik Bergh of SIF, acknowledged the importance of the recognition. He said: \u201cWe rely on the goodwill, dedication and support of many individuals and organizations who are working to tackle illegal fishing. SIF has created a network that provides both practical support and a sense of common purpose.”<\/p>\n
“We achieve change through supporting the institutions and countries most affected by illegal fishing, by challenging entrenched approaches and offering simple scalable solutions to ongoing challenges,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The medal pays tribute to the late Dr. Margarita Saucedo Liz\u00e1rraga for her role in promoting the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries and for her productive work in the field of fisheries for almost forty years.<\/p>\n
Previous winners include intergovernmental organisation La Organizaci\u00f3n del Sector Pesquero y Acu\u00edcola del Istmo Centroamericano (2013) and the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (2011).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
African not-for-profit organisation Stop Illegal Fishing (SIF) has been awarded the 2014-2015 Margarita Liz\u00e1rraga Medal in recognition of its efforts to halt illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing across the continent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9564\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9564"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=9564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}