RFMOs ‘fail to protect oceans’

The NGO has also called RFMOs ‘wholly ill-equipped’ to take on additional responsibilities to ensure the sustainability of ocean habitats.

These comments were made as the FAO’s Committee of Fisheries 36th Session ended last week.

“With fish populations increasingly at risk and climate impacts worsening, fundamental reforms are urgently needed,” said Ryan Orgera, global director of Accountability.Fish.

“The United Nations Agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction [also referred to as the High Seas Treaty] and the Paris Agreement highlight the necessity of modernising RFMOs for effective and accountable policies, but RFMOs have resisted such modernisation.”

Orgera claims that the RFMOs are dominated by the interests of industry and generally lack transparency and inclusiveness of non-extracting stakeholders.

They are also severely hampered in their effectiveness by consensus-based voting rules that often give their worst actors veto power over any substantive changes, he says.

The recently adopted High Seas Treaty, set for ratification next year, mandates area-based management tools and environmental impact assessments, and needs coordination with RFMOs.

However Orgera claims that the RFMOs rely on closed-door processes and ‘back-room dealing’ making them unsuitable for this increase in remit and responsibility.

“The future of our oceans depends on modernising RFMOs,” he said.

“That means making them accountable to the full range of stakeholders beyond their current focus on satisfying the demands of industrial fishers. This transformation is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.”