Yesterday, Somali pirates released Japanese and Ukranian ships and their crew, held hostage for three and five months, respectively. The cargo was described as unidentified chemicals, in the case of the Japanese vessel, and tanks and munitions, in the case of the Ukranian one. Reportedly, over 130 ships have been attacked last year in the Gulf of Aden. The oceans are no longer what they used to be since the fun-loving buccaneers were forced to retire in the early 17th century from their Caribbean paradise.
But piracy of a different form is taking place in the world’s oceans, loading vessels with a more noble form of cargo than chemicals and guns. Tony Pitcher and colleagues report in the February 5 issue of Nature that the UN Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, developed by FAO in 1995, is being paid as much attention as yesterday’s rag (T. Pitcher, D. Kalikoski, G. Pramod and K Short. Not honouring the code. Nature 456:658-659, 2009).
The authors show that compliance scoring on responsible fisheries correlates well with governance indicators. While still failing the test, Malaysia, South Africa and Namibia scored higher than many European countries, suggesting that solutions are not always tied with overall GDP. The article delves into policy and capacity building aspects that might account for these and other outlier countries. In the interest of food security and the continued provision of ecosystem services, the authors conclude by strongly suggesting that a new, legally-binding international instrument be developed urgently, replacing the voluntary code.
At the end of the day, no developed or developing country assessed in the study passed the score card. Only three out of the 15 best scoring countries are GEF clients. On the other hand, the bottom-scoring 22 countries, responsible for close to 40% of the world’s catch, are all GEF clients. Seems we have a work cut out for the instrument over the next several years.