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UNEP calls for safeguards to protect fish stocks

Liberalisation of the fish trade in Senegal has had a negative impact and created the risk of likely shortages in the near future, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) warned on Thursday. The current policy "has had a devastating effect on some key stocks, especially those deep-living, coastal species, favoured by European consumers", it said in a report titled 'Economic Reforms, Trade Liberalization and the Environment: a Synthesis of UNEP Country Projects'. Fishing, it added, was shifting from locally consumed species to those destined for export. The UN agency said new research had found that developing countries which opened up their waters to foreign fishing fleets may lose far more than they gain. Argentina, it said, was another "stark" example where the quantity of fish caught has since 1997, "fallen dramatically" as a result of over-exploitation of key stocks. "Some developing countries with reasonably healthy levels of stocks have, in search for foreign earnings needed to pay off debts and stimulate economic growth, entered into fishing agreements which allow foreign fleets into their waters," UNEP Executive Director, Klaus Toepfer, said. The UN agency recommended that a range of measures be taken to address the situation, including the possible institution of quotas and higher prices for foreign fishing fleets, and the suspension of agreements if stocks become seriously depleted. The report can be found at www.unep.ch/etu/doha/papers.htm

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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