Sustainable marine fisheries through transparency and multi-stakeholder collaboration

Beneficial Ownership

National fishing authorities are under increasing pressure to identify the beneficial owners of legal entities operating in the fishing sector, including those holding licenses and quotas, as well as those owning vessels used for fishing, transshipment, or transportation. Typically, beneficial owners are understood as the individuals who ultimately own, have control over, or benefit from a legal entity, such as a company, a trust, a foundation, or other similar legal arrangements. This may differ from the information otherwise provided on legal owners. Obtaining such information has become a key component in the global effort to respond to cases of illegal and unsustainable fishing. It can also be necessary to enforce other laws in the fisheries sector, such as those related to foreign ownership, economic concentration and the commercial interests of politically exposed persons, including their role as fishing agents.

Concerns about data privacy may prohibit governments from providing unrestricted public access to beneficial ownership information. Additionally, what is often not made transparent are the rules and procedures for collating, verifying and using beneficial ownership information in the management of the fishing sector, which could extend to cases where vessels or quotas are leased or where legal entities operating in the country’s maritime jurisdiction are not registered in the country. A lack of transparency prevents public debate on whether such rules and procedures are adequate and likely to be effective.

Development Finance

Fisheries and marine conservation can be heavily dependent and influenced by development finance, including Official Development Aid, loans and grants from development banks and, increasingly, support from philanthropic donors. For decades, countries have recognised the importance of transparency in the effectiveness of these financial flows, and several international databases have been established to promote public access to this information. There is now a strong global commitment to public reporting on development finance for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using the ‘Total Official Support for Sustainable Development’ Standard.

However, significant discrepancies have been found in the level of public reporting on the terms and conditions of development finance projects and programmes, as well as their outcomes. The priority given to blending aid with private finance, such as through the issuing of bonds and debt conversion schemes, increases the importance and challenges of ensuring public accountability, given the limited public understanding of how such financial instruments work.

Fiscal Management

The administration of revenues and expenditures is a critical dimension of effective fisheries management. In many countries, commercial fisheries can be a significant source of government income and foreign exchange, at both the national and subnational levels. However, there can be a lack of clarity for the public on what these revenues are and how they are used. This can fuel concerns that fishing companies are paying insufficiently, while international experience suggests that revenues from fishing are particularly vulnerable to corruption. Likewise, the amount spent on fisheries management has a significant impact on its effectiveness and outcomes, with many countries reporting underfunding of fisheries management authorities or that expenditures are concentrated on specific sectors, leaving others neglected.

The subject of fiscal management transparency has been elevated by international concerns regarding subsidies in the fisheries sector, including a lack of transparency in their allocations. The World Trade Organisation’s Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies is introducing disciplines on their use in the fisheries sector, as well as transparency and notification requirements.

Trade and Consumption

Fish are among the most widely traded food commodities globally. For many countries, exports provide an essential source of revenues and employment, while fish imports are significant for maintaining people’s healthy diets and ensuring food security. Yet fish trade is often controversial. Exports are blamed in some contexts for depriving people of access to affordable and nutritious food. The need to ensure that fish trade supports national food security objectives has also drawn attention to the proportion of fish destined for direct human consumption as opposed to that used for indirect human consumption, such as fishmeal and fish oil, and other non-food uses. There can be substantial quantities of fish that are lost along the production and supply chain. SDG 12.3 sets the target for countries to reduce such losses by 50%.

The management of the international fish trade is further undermined by inconsistent reporting and documentation, which may facilitate seafood fraud and the illicit or unsustainable trade in endangered species. The International Convention on the Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System (HS Convention) obligates parties to publish trade data on an annual basis and to use the harmonised codes administered by the World Customs Organisation. Parties to CITES must also publish records of trade in endangered species, including those classified as introduced from the sea.

Law Enforcement

Non-compliance with laws and regulations is widely regarded as a significant challenge to fisheries management, encompassing forms of illegal fishing at sea, as well as various forms of fraud and illicit trade in fish. Consequently, international attention has grown regarding the measures taken by national authorities to enforce laws and regulations, the results of these actions, and the respect for due process. However, a lack of transparency in national responses can undermine public trust in the seriousness with which non-compliance is addressed. It may also raise concerns that law enforcement responses are inconsistent or arbitrary.

Employment and Labour Standards

Fisheries employ millions of people, although often the extent and nature of employment is poorly captured in national labour surveys. In many countries, the challenge of understanding the number of people dependent on fisheries for their livelihoods is exacerbated by the informal nature of their work. A lack of visibility in national statistics on employment is particularly relevant for those engaged in the pre-harvest and post-harvest sectors, with women’s contributions to the preparation and sale of fish often being hidden, for example.

International attention on employment in fisheries has also drawn attention to the unique vulnerabilities experienced by those working on fishing vessels. This is recognised as one of the most hazardous forms of work, with high rates of mortality and accidents. However, specific labour laws for workers on board fishing vessels, and their recourse to grievance mechanisms, can be inadequate or insufficiently publicised, as are records of injuries or deaths at sea.

Health of Fish Populations

In the context of rising concerns about declines in fish populations due to overfishing, pollution, habitat destruction, and the climate crisis, information on the biological status of key fish populations is critical for informed public debates on fisheries management effectiveness. It is also essential for the legitimacy of any measures that national authorities impose to regulate fishing intensity and demonstrate their adherence to the precautionary principle. However, not only is information on the biological status of fish populations often inadequately communicated by national authorities, but so too are the methods used to make these assessments.

Improving transparency in fisheries management is particularly important for species classified as endangered under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), such as many shark species and sea cucumbers. Parties to CITES are obliged to produce quotas for any endangered species harvested and traded in their national waters and to produce a non-detriment findings report demonstrating that levels of trade are not unsustainable. Despite this, national authorities are often inconsistent in producing and publishing CITES information, and many people are unaware of these reporting requirements.

Catches

Information on catches and discards of fish species and other marine animals is essential for public accountability regarding the extent to which national authorities are meeting their objectives and targets for conserving fish populations, as well as any policies aimed at promoting resource allocations for specific groups or sectors. The challenges facing countries in accurately reporting on catches also highlight the importance of communicating the methods used for collating catch data, as well as those used for measuring fishing effort and discards in different sectors. However, public access to such information can be restricted, or it has limited opportunities for informing public debates if it is only available in highly technical scientific reports.

Vessels and Authorisations

Public access to information about the people and companies involved in fishing, as well as those who have been granted fishing rights, is crucial for ensuring public accountability. It informs national debates on fishing intensity, as well as often contentious decisions on resource allocations between groups and sectors. Additionally, states that are party to the FAO have agreed to the Global Record of Fishing Vessels, Refrigerated Transport Vessels and Supply Vessels as part of their commitment to address Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. However, reporting practices on vessel information and fishing authorisations are often inadequate. National authorities may face challenges in collecting information on the numbers of vessels and their characteristics, particularly in sectors where formal registration may not be required, such as the artisanal, subsistence and recreational fishing sectors. Vessels and authorisations being underreported or missing from national statistics can contribute to their marginalisation in policy debates. Furthermore, national authorities often fail to maintain public records on who is allocated or obtains fishing quotas and how these quotas may be traded or leased.

Small-Scale Fisheries

There is an international consensus that special consideration should be afforded to small-scale or artisanal fisheries in fisheries management. This is due to their essential social, economic and food security roles across all parts of the fisheries supply chain, including pre-harvest activities, such as supplying and repairing boats and fishing equipment, and post-harvest activities, such as processing and selling the catch. Nevertheless, these roles are undermined in many countries by forms of marginalisation and neglect, as well as the activities of competing industries.

International agreements, including the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the Context of Food Security and Poverty Eradication, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals (14.b), require governments to support those engaged in small-scale fisheries and to promote their preferential access to fisheries resources and markets. However, progress on policies for securing small-scale fisheries can be undermined by a lack of clarity on which activities, groups and peoples are identified by national authorities as small-scale fisheries, as well as a lack of communication on the specific policies and actions that have been taken or are planned for their support.