Sustainable marine fisheries through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaboration

In Africa and around the world, fisheries play a crucial role in supporting livelihoods, providing employment and driving social economic development. However, the future of the world’s fisheries is seriously threatened and this global challenge is far greater than any country can handle on its own.
The Fisheries Transparency Initiative, with transparency and participation as its cornerstones, makes an invaluable contribution to safeguard what is amongst the most vital resources on the planet.

The government of Seychelles has a clear vision to make Seychelles’ fisheries the most transparent in the world.
We have nothing to hide. We have everything to share.
Reporting and transparency in all resource management has become an important requirement for most countries, and Seychelles is not an exception.
Through the Fisheries Transparency Initiative we are demonstrating our commitment to good governance and the establishment of responsive, inclusive institutions.
This is a tool for future development, and it must be our guiding principle to share all data and information on resources with all stakeholders.

Sustainable fisheries contribute significantly to food security, poverty reduction and increased resilience to the impacts of climate change.
But the sustainable management of fisheries is constantly undermined by several illegal activities, including corruption.
The International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA) and the Fisheries Transparency Initiative are working together to address the key drivers of corruption and the different approaches to tackle this global problem.

For too long, we’ve been exploiting our resources beyond sustainable levels.
We must act quickly to reverse this trend and help our oceans regenerate. But this can only be achieved if governments, businesses and civil society work together and if more information on fisheries is available in the public domain.
The Fisheries Transparency Initiative, with its build-in multi-stakeholder orientation, is a unique effort to enhance the public availability of credible information for the benefit of a more sustainable management of marine fisheries.

Fisheries are a critical economic and nutritional resource for millions of people around the world.
Yet, the sustainable management of fisheries faces multiple challenges. Challenges that corruption exacerbates.
The recent Fishrot Files exposed how anonymous companies allegedly helped launder the proceeds of illegal fishing activities and to bribe government officials. It's a textbook example of how legal loopholes and secrecy jurisdictions enable corruption and environmental exploitation on a global scale. Greater transparency is vital to overcoming these challenges.
The Fisheries Transparency Initiative will make a valuable contribution to ensuring that becomes a reality.

Lack of transparency is still a major underlying factor behind many of the most negative aspects of global fisheries, including Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, fleet overcapacity, overfishing, harmful subsidies, unmonitored transshipment, fraud, corruption, inadequate or absent fisheries management.
Even after 25 years of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries calling for sustainable fisheries from a multi-dimensional angle with specific aspects involving transparency, basic information still often remains out of the public domain.
The Fisheries Transparency Initiative is a notable global effort supported by countries, the private sector, and civil society that presents a real opportunity to foster transparency and increase the credibility and quality of national fisheries information, reinforcing the basic principles of the FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.

Fishing, one of mankind's first activities aimed at satisfying our nutritional needs, is today of enormous importance, not only for global food security, but also because it is, in many countries, the most important primary economic activity that generates thousands of direct or indirect jobs.
This valuable maritime resource must be protected from the uncontrolled rise of ever greater exploitation.
The purposes and principles that guide the work of FiTI constitute powerful weapons in the fight against overfishing as well as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).
Transparency is a prerequisite for creating a global regulatory framework that prevents these harmful activities from being carried out.

Transparency and participation are key elements of good governance.
Through the FiTI, countries can not only demonstrate a clear commitment to good governance for responsible fisheries. It can also improve a country’s investment climate.

We can only address the tremendous challenges that global fisheries are facing in a collective effort, by bringing governments, business, civil society, academia and media together on this important quest.
The Fisheries Transparency Initiative makes a unique contribution to the sustainable development of fisheries by setting clear requirements on what is expected from countries regarding transparency and multi-stakeholder participation in fisheries.
I hope that many coastal countries join the FiTI and contribute to a global level playing field of transparency in marine fisheries.

The situation of the oceans is critical. Development cannot be incompatible with sustainability. With the cooperation we are undertaking with the FiTI, Bolivia reinforces its policy of transparency and assumes a clear commitment to humanity to preserve the oceans.