Over 25 years ago, illegal fishing was seen as a significant threat to international fisheries. Extraordinary efforts, such as the adoption of the UN Fish Stocks Agreement and the UN Compliance Agreement, illustrated the importance of addressing illegal fishing at the global level. The countries in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have a long history of addressing fisheries interests by leading global efforts. The Santiago Declaration of 1952 established a 200 nautical mile fisheries zone leading to the codification of the concept in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). It also created a regional coordination mechanism, the Permanent Commission of the South Pacific (CPPS), which has recently begun efforts to establish a regional plan of action to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in accordance with the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) International Plan of Action on IUU. The intervening decades have seen i
NOAA s Katie Wagner said the U.S. led the successful adoption of several measures addressing issues concerning transshipment, labor, and stateless vessels.
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Louisiana Gulf Seafood photo
As our tenure in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) ends, we want to share the progress our agency team has accomplished. Working with the National Marine Fisheries Service leadership, we sought to increase fishing opportunities, reduce unnecessary burdens, expand market access, and continue to improve the status of fish stocks. As NOAA transitions to a new political leadership team, it is important to build upon the achievements of these past four years, and continue to support the commercial and recreational fishing sectors:
Advance fisheries conservation.
NOAA continued to make significant progress working with fishermen to improve the status of U.S. fish stocks. Two additional fish stocks were rebuilt last year, making a total of 47 fish stocks rebuilt since 2000. The overfishing list dropped to 22 stocks, setting an all-time low. Ninety-three percent of the stocks managed by NOAA are not subject to overfishing and 8