Thursday, December 20, 2012

Improving Marine Conservation in the Developing World?

Dwindling resources. Source. Yes these are links!

Excellent post!
Please do take the time to read it!

And I cite.
NGOs in developing countries are instead focusing on simple conservation projects that they themselves administer and implement or which are done in collaboration with small communities. This is troubling as NGOs will never alone have the capacity and communities the scope necessary to succeed in the widespread conservation of fisheries in the developing world.

I argue that environmental NGOs absolutely must change their government engagement strategy if it truly wants to improve state capacity for fisheries management and succeed their mission to preserve ocean resources for future generations.
Could not agree more!
Mark Gibson clearly knows what he is talking about and I really enjoy discovering his thoughts on Breaching the Blue, the more as everything is always meticulously documented via links.

His five points?
Great stuff, maybe with one addendum.
When he correctly states that the management of fisheries doesn’t ‘pay’. Most fisheries in the world are considered public resources that yield private benefits for fishermen, and yet fisheries taxes are relatively rare. Compare this to the timber or mining industries where royalties are common. And even when there are fisheries taxes, they typically do not cover the full cost of public management my answer obviously is, it is high time for that to change!

Remember this post?
In its second half, it touches on the exact same problem and basically proposes to advocate a marine version of ecological impact assessments whereby the burden of proof is being reversed and the fishing industry is being asked to invest the resources into proving that what they do is sustainable. That's was has been happening on land for a very long time indeed and I just don't see why it cannot be extended to the ocean.
Granted, it cannot be applied to subsistence fishing which is a major problem in itself due to recent demographic developments - but it would immediately free up considerable government resources that could be invested into monitoring and enforcement which so far have been so woefully inadequate.

Please do think about it.
And if you agree, please spread the word - the more we talk about it, the sooner it will happen!

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