Sustainable fisheries, including through the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the Provisions of
the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the Conservation
and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, and related instruments
A/RES/69/109
Nations (the Code), and noting in this regard that a conference will be held in 2015
in Vigo, Spain, for this purpose,
Welcoming the work of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations and its Committee on Fisheries, and recognizing in particular the Code and
other related instruments, including the international plans of action, which set out
principles and global standards of behaviour for responsible practices for
conservation of fisheries resources and the management and development of
fisheries, as well as the 2005 Rome Declaration on Illegal, Unreported and
Unregulated Fishing,
Welcoming also the outcomes, including the decisions and recommendations,
of the thirty-first session of the Committee on Fisheries, held in Rome from 9 to
13 June 2014, 3
Recognizing the importance of data collection through accurate and reliable
reporting and monitoring of catches, including by-catch and discards, as a
fundamental element of effective fisheries management that provides a basis for
scientific stock assessment, and ecosystem approaches to fisheries management,
Noting with concern that effective management of marine capture fisheries has
been made difficult in some areas by unreliable information and data caused by,
inter alia, unreported and misreported fish catch and fishing effort and that this lack
of accurate data contributes to overfishing in some areas,
Recognizing the significant contribution of sustainable fisheries to food
security, income, wealth and poverty alleviation for present and future generations,
Welcoming in this regard the outcome document of the United Nations
Conference on Sustainable Development, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, from 20 to
22 June 2012, entitled “The future we want”, as endorsed by the General Assembly
in its resolution 66/288 of 27 July 2012,
Welcoming also in this regard the continuous attention given by the
international community to the role of fish and fish products in nutrition and food
security, especially noting the importance of the availability of highly nutritious
food for low-income populations, and noting in this regard that the United Nations
Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea
focused its discussions at its fifteenth meeting, held from 27 to 30 May 2014, on the
role of seafood in global food security, 4 and noting also that the Committee on
World Food Security of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations at its forty-first session, held from 13 to 17 October 2014, recognized the
contribution of fisheries and aquaculture to food security and nutrition, 5
Recalling that in “The future we want”, 6 States were encouraged to give due
consideration to implementing the Committee on World Food Security Voluntary
Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests
in the Context of National Food Security,
Welcoming in this regard the convening by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations of Tenure and Fishing Rights 2015: a global
_______________
3
See Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, document C 2015/23.
See A/69/90.
5
See Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, document C 2015/20.
6
Resolution 66/288, annex.
4
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