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Share FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Fishing Industry to Consider Approaches to Marine Spatial Planning and Bycatch Mitigation |
TAIPEI, Taiwan, July 30, 2010 --/WORLD-WIRE/-- The Fifth International Fishers Forum on Marine Spatial Planning and Bycatch Mitigation will bring 300 commercial fisheries experts to Taipei, Taiwan, from August 3 to 5, 2010, to improve the sustainability of fish stocks and the protected species with which fisheries interact. Participants include commercial fishers, management authorities, experts in marine spatial planning, fishing technology experts, seafood retailer representatives, marine ecologists and fisheries scientists.
The co-hosts are Fisheries Agency of the Council of Agriculture (FA COA), Taiwan, and the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council, Hawaii, USA. Previous International Fishers Forums were held over the past decade in New Zealand, Hawaii, Japan and Costa Rica. "The central objective of this Forum is to bring the fishing industry into the relatively recent dialogue of approaches for applying marine spatial planning into fisheries management," explained Kitty Simonds, Executive Director of the Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council. "The Forum participants will also take stock of progress made during the period of the Forum series in mitigating interactions with sea turtles, seabirds, sharks and marine mammals and identify priority conservation and management needs to ensure long-term environmental and socioeconomic sustainability." "The Forum provides an opportunity to discuss approaches and share experiences in implementing marine spatial planning to achieve marine biodiversity conservation goals," noted James Sha, FA COA Director General. "Conference participants will be asked to generate a set of recommendations and fishing industry commitments to implement marine place-based planning to contribute to the effective management of high seas and coastal marine fisheries." "The Forum will further provide participants with the opportunity to consider which bycatch mitigation approaches have proven effective, and determine where more influence is needed to improve fisheries production practices and governance structures related to mitigating bycatch," Sha added. The Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization defines marine spatial planning as: "... a public process of analyzing and allocating the spatial and temporal distribution of human activities in marine areas to achieve ecological, economic, and social objectives that are usually specified through a political process." The U.S. Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force's definition of coastal and marine spatial planning is similar: "... a comprehensive, adaptive, integrated, ecosystem-based, and transparent spatial planning process ... [that] ... identifies areas most suitable for various types or classes of activities in order to reduce conflicts among uses, reduce environmental impacts, facilitate compatible uses, and preserve critical ecosystem services to meet economic, environmental, security, and social objectives." Press conferences: (i) Tuesday 3 August, 10:45-11:15, and (ii) Thursday 5 August, 17:15-17:45 For more information, please contact: Tzu-Yaw Tsay, FA COA Media Contact Tel: +886-2-3343-6011, E-mail: tzuyaw@ms1.fa.gov.tw Sylvia Spalding, Western Pacific Regional Fishery Management Council Media Contact Tel: +1-808-522-8220, E-mail: Sylvia.Spalding@noaa.gov The Forum program can be found at: http://www.fishersforum.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/IFF5_ENGagenda_WEB072710.pdf. Other conference materials available at: www.fishersforum.net. |
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