Sea Around Us: North Atlantic, Page 55 Compliance with International Fisheries Instruments

• Main Authors: Jackie Alder, Gail Lugten, Robert Kay, Bridget Ferriss
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.631.2555; http://www.seaaroundus.org/report/impactpolicy/alder.pdf

This report provides an assessment of the level of com-pliance with international fisheries instruments for countries bordering the North Atlantic. Fifteen instru-ments (conventions, treaties or agreements) were as-sessed for 17 countries. Overall the level of compliance is moderate to high for most instruments, and for most countries. There tends to be a latitudinal gradient of compliance, with the northern countries scoring higher than those to the south. The study revealed that few re-gional fishery bodies have a systematic program in place to monitor and assess compliance with their in-struments. The most important result of this study, however, is that despite, at least moderate levels of compliance, most of the fisheries that are managed un-der these instruments are overexploited and at risk of collapse. In some cases, fisheries such as the cod in the western Atlantic are not showing signs of recovery after a 5-year moratorium on commercial fishing.