Redesigning Indian Ocean Fisheries Governance for 21st Century Sustainability
| Date | 01 May 2017 |
| Published date | 01 May 2017 |
| Author | Claire Geest |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.12447 |
Redesigning Indian Ocean Fisheries
Governance for 21st Century Sustainability
Claire van der Geest
Independent Fisheries and Development Specialist
Abstract
Goal 14 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals recognises the continued pressure on marine ecosystems and
the need to implement performance based management arrangements for fisheries. Reformulating governance arrangements
are prerequisites for achieving this: rectifying gaps while giving effect to existing hortatory obligations enable effective man-
agement decisions including for new and/or emerging issues such as climate change. This is particularly evident in the Indian
Ocean, which is surrounded by developing states, and where the climate change impacts already evident. Indian Ocean fish-
eries governance arrangements are also imperfect: there is incomplete coverage of highly migratory species and high seas
areas; and no one organisation where all relevant states share membership. Furthermore, the limited resources of developing
coastal states restricts the ability to effectively understand and sustainably manage the resources. If developing coastal states
are to meet 21st century challenges, governance arrangements must be modernised to address species, spatial and member-
ship gaps while supporting the implementation of hortatory obligations and ocean-wide, cross-sectorial and cross-jurisdictional
programs that: facilitate ocean-wide scientific monitoring of ecological processes and anthropogenic impacts, and enable inte-
grated monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) of fishing with the adopted management measures to improve certainty of
the management.
1. The Need to Redesign Indian Ocean
Governance: an introduction
The global approach to managing highly migratory, shared
and straddling fisheries resources (collectively known as
highly migratory species or HMS) is established by the Law
of the Sea Convention (LOSC), its implementing agreement,
the United Nations Fish Stocks Agreement (UNFSA), and the
various Regional Fisheries Management Organisations
(RFMOs) treaties established thereunder. This governance
arrangement recognises the common ownership of the
resources and, to deliver long-term resource sustainability,
the need for cooperative management by all sovereign
states and fishing entities. However, despite these global
governance arrangements, sustainability remains elusive.
Overfishing and overcapacity continue to beleaguer many of
these stocks, bycatch continues to affect ecosystem form
and resilience, and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU)
fishing continues relatively unabated (FAO, 2014). In recogni-
tion of these gaps, the global community in 2015 adopted
the Sustainable Development Goals, of which goal number
14 calls for management action that delivers ecosystem resi-
lience, combats illegal fishing practices and provides eco-
nomic development opportunities for developing states
(United Nations, 2016). To successfully achieve this goal,
governance arrangements need to be improved. For exam-
ple, establishing science-based and enforceable fisheries
policies and management requires governance that gives
effect to the duty to cooperate and provides rigorous scien-
tific and compliance monitoring.
Governance gaps are particularly evident in the manage-
ment of HMS in the Indian Ocean, where poor regional gov-
ernance arrangements do not effectively support robust
management. Even with two RFMOs, there are species and
spatial coverage gaps and poor implementation of LOSC
and UNFSA obligations among the members. Significantly,
the ramifications of these governance arrangements has a
disproportionate impact in the Indian Ocean due to the
high proportion of developing coastal states and increased
impact of climate change on the Indian Ocean as fishers are
unable to move to more productive fishing grounds and so
simply have less fish to catch. This, in turn, leads to overfish-
ing resulting in food insecurity and reduced economic
growth potential from these resources. Addressing these
gaps is therefore of essential to the long-term sustainability
of the stocks plus the development across the region consis-
tent with goal 14.
This article does not focus on detailed policies required to
address specificfisheries issues such as overfishing, bycatch
or IUU. Rather, this article argues that fisheries sustainability
in the Indian Ocean is more likely achieved by redesigning
regional fisheries governance away from the existing para-
digm of standalone RFMOs to an integrated arrangement to
support ocean-basin management. Specifically, the article
proposes two possible solutions: (1) the negotiation of a
new treaty that brings all HMS, science and MCS into a sin-
gle governance framework or (2) establishing a new
arrangement for the provision of scientific and MCS services
coupled with amending the existing RFMO treaties. Both
proposed solutions address the current governance gaps
Global Policy (2017) 8:2 doi: 10.1111/1758-5899.12447 ©2017 University of Durham and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Global Policy Volume 8 . Issue 2 . May 2017 227
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