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Legal
toothfish fishing
occurs in a number of regions around the Antarctica continent, in the high
seas waters of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctic, as well as in several
Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the Southern Oceans. An EEZ is
a declared region of water, out to 200 nautical miles from the coastline of
a country, which that country is responsible for in terms of resource
management and control over fishing and other activities.
COLTO members operate in many
of these regions, including waters surrounding territories of New Zealand,
Australia, France, South Africa, Chile, and Falkland Island/Isles Malvinas.
Unfortunately, there are some unscrupulous operators who also choose to
operate illegally in those regions, and COLTO members are working together
within industry, governments and conservation groups to eliminate these
illegal activities.
[Read
about the outcomes from the OECD IUU Workshop held in Paris, April 2004]
COLTO has been formed in the
knowledge that most of the southern ocean toothfish fisheries are currently
well managed, and effective surveillance and enforcement exists to preclude
illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing activity as a general rule
in most of the toothfish fisheries.
However, it is recognised
that, left unchecked, the IUU activity not being well controlled at present
in several areas will spill over into the existing well managed and
sustainable fisheries. This will create problems in the future, if not
stopped now. Most recently, the main IUU activity has been happening in
the southern Indian Ocean regions, around the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs)
of France, South Africa and Australia.
Governments, industry,
conservationists and international management groups have been working hard
to combat IUU fishing, and COLTO
has contributed to the successful reduction in IUU
fishing over recent years. With our industry linkages, we have a unique ability to provide
assistance and support for Government and conservation groups to eliminate IUU fishing for toothfish.
COLTO can
also work with conservation groups to publicise and identify IUU operators,
their companies, boats, individuals and trading names. This will help
the public be more aware of the need to buy legaly caught toothfish product,
and demonstrate the actions being taken by legal industry members to ensure
the toothfish that they are eating is sourced from sustainable, well
mamanged fisheries in the Southern Oceans.
COLTO members are networked
internationally, and can provide very effective updates and surveillance
information to governments to help eliminate IUU fishing for toothfish.
In total, COLTO members and
supporters represent legal catchers of more than 50% of the total global
legal production of toothfish. In total, COLTO members vessels
legally catch over 15,000 tonnes of toothfish per annum. |
