Facilitating Sustainable Fisheries Management and Trade through Fisheries Information Management

The Sustainable Development Goal 14 (conserve and sustainable use of oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development) of the 2030 Agenda and in particular Target 14.4 on harvesting and overfishing provides a global mandate for conserving fisheries resources.
Worldwide an estimated 1 billion people including many in small-island developing states (SIDS), depend on fish and fisheries products for intake of protein. About 38 million people are engaged in fishing for economic security. However, not all fish is captured legally or sustainably. Overfishing and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) are a key cause of unsustainable fishing practices. In 2016, illicit fishing was reported to represent one quarter of the total fish harvested annually, valued at up to 23 billion US dollars. Overfishing and unregulated fishing not only creates uncertainty of future fish stock but also causes imbalance in bio-diversity.
One of the key ways to address this issue is to introduce sustainable fishing practices or fisheries management that will ensure future fish stock and at the same time retain biodiversity of water bodies. And for this to happen, gathering reliable information on daily catches, fishing locations, vessel information and other related information is vital. The FLUX (Fisheries Language Universal Exchange) standard, developed by UN Centre for Trade Faciliation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) hosted by UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) is a good example towards information management.
In this context, the objective of this session is to discuss how key instruments such as FLUX and instruments like this can eventually be disseminated for adoption by fishermen, traders, fisheries management authorities and other relevant stakeholders. The session is also expected to highlight how sustainable fisheries management practices could contribute to implementation of SDG 14 and Target 14.4 in particular.