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www.chirpmaritime.org First published: March 2021

FAO – their role in international fishing safety standards

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is a specialised agency of the United Nations and is an The number of fatalities independent international organisation funded by in fisheries in 2019 was both voluntary and assessed contributions, working in over 130 countries worldwide. Recently, CHIRP estimated at 32,000

www.chirpmaritime.org Maritime has engaged with this agency with a view to promoting their work alongside that of CHIRP The 1999 ILO established rate of 80 fatalities per Maritime. To that end, a link to our website now 100,000/year of active fishers was maintained for this exists on the FAO website. new estimate. It should be noted that the revised FAO Commercial fishing remains one of the world’s global estimate is likely an underestimation. Reports most dangerous occupations. The FAO revised its from the few developed countries that collect fisheries global estimate of the number of fatalities in fisheries accident data commonly show rates of more than 100 in 2019 to 32,000. The basis for this revision was fatalities per 100,000 active fishers. In fact, in some the increase in the number of fishers worldwide industrial fishing fleets, accident and fatality rates from around 30 million in 2000 to 40 million in 2016. have recently been on the rise. Furthermore, there

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is anecdotal evidence that in developing countries The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible with small-scale fishing fleets the fatality rates among Fisheries is explicit in relation to the principle of fishers are significantly higher. “safety” in Article 6.17, where it is emphasized that “States should ensure that fishing facilities and 25 years of FAO’S Code of Conduct for equipment as well as all fisheries activities allow for Responsible Fisheries safe, healthy and fair working and living conditions Adopted 25 years ago by the International Conference and meet internationally agreed standards adopted on Responsible Fishing, the Code of Conduct for by relevant international organizations”. Article Responsible Fisheries (http://www.fao.org/tempref/ 8.1.5 expands on the principle of safety, requesting docrep/fao/005/v9878e/v9878e00.pdf) remains the states “to ensure that health and safety standards reference for national and international efforts to are adopted for everyone in fishing operations and ensure sustainable fisheries and aquaculture. that such standards should not be less than the The Code sets out principles and international minimum requirements of relevant international standards of behaviour for responsible practices agreements on conditions of work and service”. with a view to ensuring the effective conservation, Moreover, Article 8.4.1 requests that “States should management and development of living aquatic ensure that fishing is conducted with due regard to resources in harmony with the environment. the safety of human life“. Its success can also be measured by the number COFI (Committee on Fisheries – a subsidiary body of languages it has been translated into – 27 to of the FAO Council) has repeatedly highlighted the date – making it one of the Organisation’s most importance of safety at sea in the fisheries sector and translated publications. welcomed the cooperation in this regard between the The FAO Directorate General is a depository International Labour Organization (ILO), the International for a number of conventions, agreements and Maritime Organization (IMO) and the FAO. At their treaties that relate to food and agriculture recent (1-5 February 2021) 34th session, COFI members (http://www.fao.org/treaties/en/). These include, for issued a Declaration for Sustainable Fisheries and instance, the 2009 Port State Measures Agreement Aquaculture (http://www.fao.org/3/ne472en/ne472en. (http://www.fao.org/port-state-measures/en/) and pdf) in which the Members agreed to “Promote the the 1993 FAO Compliance Agreement attainment of safe, healthy and fair working conditions (http://www.fao.org/iuu-fishing/international- for all in the sector, support efforts to prevent and halt framework/fao-compliance-agreement/en/), which forced labour, facilitate access to social protection both aim to contribute to responsible fisheries and programmes for fishers and aquaculture producers and marine resource conservation. They also work to their communities, support measures to improve safety assist member countries to develop and implement at sea, and work towards enhancing the standards these agreements, standards and guidelines. of living for all in the sector, in cooperation with other In addition, FAO have built an extensive legislative relevant international organisations, including the database (http://www.fao.org/faolex/en/) to give International Labour Organization and the International users quick access to national laws, regulations and Maritime Organization”. policies on food, agriculture and natural resource management. They also provide information papers FAO activities on safety at sea in the on the subject of safety at sea and decent working fisheries sector conditions in fisheries and aquaculture. The FAO has developed capacity building programmes and materials on safety at sea for small-scale fishers. These activities are carried out jointly with government counterparts and include emergency preparation, outboard engine repair and maintenance, safety risk management, boat handling and basic marine traffic rules, as well as emergency first aid and communications.

www.chirpmaritime.org Figure 2 – Radio communication training of Figure 1 – Fishing crew life jacket practice in Yemen fishers in Dominica (Caribbean) (photo courtesy of (photo courtesy of Khalid Zanoqi) Iris Monnereau)

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Nearly 600 fishers in the Caribbean received illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. specific Information and Communication Technology The seminars took place in Asia (Manila, March2018), (ICT) training, supported by the FAO, in 2019/2020, in the South-West Indian Ocean (Seychelles, May focusing on the three ICT devices that are most 2019) and in West Africa (Accra, October 2019). Other important to safety at sea for small-scale fishers: the regions are expected to be covered in 2020. VHF radio, the Global Positioning System (GPS) and At the regional level, FAO published in 2019 the cell phones. FAO trained small-scale fishers through outcome of a regional study conducted with the performing drills on the radio, GPS and cell phone in General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean a classroom environment, as well as at sea. (GFCM) in five countries (Albania, Egypt, Lebanon, In the Pacific islands of Tokelau, the FAO Safety Morocco and Tunisia). The study reviewed available at Sea for Small-scale Fishers programme in 2019 social protection programmes and access of small- included the provision of appropriate safety gear, scale fishers to these programmes. The review training on the use of gear and safety education at found several success stories as well as areas of schools. It also included training on engine repair improvement and recommended practical measures and maintenance. to be taken by national authorities as over 90 percent of the world’s fishing vessels are small-scale vessels which are not covered by the IMO instruments. FAO aims to expand the capacity-building efforts to other regions, provided funding from resource partners becomes available, and the FAO “Safety-for- fishermen” website will be modernized. Fisheries accident and fatality reporting has been on the agenda of the international community for the last four decades, particularly within IMO, ILO and FAO. However, up to today most countries lack an effective reporting, investigation and analysis system. The IMO Cape Town Agreement and ILO Figure 3 – Outboard motor repair training of Convention No.188 both stress the need for states small-scale fishers in Tokelau (photo courtesy of to report and investigate fishing accidents but Jessica Sanders) are either applicable to large-scale (>24m) fishing vessels only, or limited in scope by the low number The FAO also has a Bay of Bengal programme and of ratifying states. FAO proposes to collaborate with has published a practical manual on “Safety at sea governments and other stakeholders to achieve the for small-scale fishers”, containing comic-book style necessary progress on this topic. illustrations. This manual is available online in English The FAO started collaborating in 2020 with IMO, (http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/ca5772en), PEW Charitable Trust, Lloyds Register Foundation French, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese, Tamil and and the FISH Safety Foundation on the development Sinhala. It is distributed through various projects and of global accident and fatality reporting and data partners in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. Other management systems for the fisheries sector. Other language versions and regionalized versions of the stakeholders are welcome to join in this endeavour, manual are under preparation. which will hopefully result in one or more voluntary and formal accident and fatality reporting systems for Decent work in fisheries the sector in the near future. Since 2018 FAO and the Apostleship of the Sea, in cooperation with the IMO and the ILO, facilitated a With thanks to Raymon VanAnrooy (NFIO) series of regional technical seminars on the linkages FAO, Rome – Fishing-safety@fao.org between vessels’ safety, working conditions and http://www.fao.org/home/en/

ILO, IMO and FAO instruments, improving safety at sea and working conditions, and reducing accidents and fatalities in capture fisheries and aquaculture

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