Nations meet to discuss depleted fish stocks
AM - Saturday, 7 May , 2005 08:26:00
Reporter: Sarah Clarke
abc.net.au
ELIZABETH JACKSON: After five days of international talks discussing the fate of our seas a United Nations meeting in Canada has wound up, but with little resolved. There are clear signs of growing scarcity in the ocean. Fish size is getting smaller and the stocks are diminishing.
Even so, most Asian countries have this week refused to sign the crucial agreement to protect the ocean's depleting fish stocks.
While Japan is now indicating it will sign the UN deal, Taiwan, Indonesia and Korea are still standing firm, and Australia has now been handed the diplomatically sensitive task of bringing them on board.
Our Environment Reporter Sarah Clarke reports.
SARAH CLARKE: Newfoundland is considered one of the world's largest cod fisheries for centuries, but in the last two decades it's completely collapsed. It's for that reason it was the designated location this week for the United Nations conference to discuss the ocean's ever depleting fish stocks.
After five days of ministerial talks, and intense backroom negotiations, the meet has ended, and environmentalists who lobbied from the sidelines, say with little result.
Michael Rae is with the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
MICHAEL RAE: The result is pretty much a dead loss. We've got no firm commitments for action and no timetables, leaving the world's fish stocks and marine environment in a parlous state.
SARAH CLARKE: No one can escape the warning signs that are now there. The world's fish stocks have been dwindling for decades. A United Nations report says the number of fishing grounds considered to be "fully exploited" has climbed to around 50 per cent over the last half century.
And with no sign of demand slowing or the global fleet easing up, this week the push has been to recruit key Asian countries to sign up to the UN Fish Stocks Agreement.
While Japan is now planning to sign the UN deal, Australia, who was represented at the meeting by Federal Fisheries Minister, Ian McDonald, says other countries have not.
IAN MCDONALD: There are a number of north Asian and Asian countries who are not signed up to the Fish Stocks Agreement and I'll be making that my goal to get in touch with the relevant ministers in the very near future urging them to sign up to the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement.
SARAH CLARKE: In fact, the Federal Government has been delivered the difficult and diplomatically sensitive task of lobbying Korea, China, and Indonesia to come on board.
With some scientific assessments suggesting that the number of large fish in the oceans has fallen by around 90 per cent since the 1950s, conservation groups say there's simply not enough time for talk.
Michael Rae from the Worldwide Fund for Nature.
MICHAEL RAE: We do not want a trail of devastated fishing communities and sea floor rubble from deep sea trawling. We really need quick action.
ELIZABETH JACKSON: Michael Rae or the Worldwide Fund for Nature with our reporter, Sarah Clarke. |
