Fisheries Managers Can Improve, Streamline Compliance Processes

Regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs), the international bodies charged with the oversight of valuable fish stocks, face many barriers to effectively applying and enforcing management measures, including political sensitivities; complex legal, institutional, and operational interactions; geographic and cultural differences; and a changing marine environment.

To help RFMOs overcome these challenges, in 2020 and 2021, a group of experts convened for three workshops to discuss standards for evaluating and strengthening compliance processes. This work led to a series of recommendations and tools, captured in a recent paper, “Approaches to Evaluate and Strengthen RFMO Compliance Processes and Performance,” to help RFMO participants and observers identify improvements and refinement to streamline compliance processes and make them more effective.

The Pew Charitable Trusts provided funding for this project, but Pew is not responsible for errors in this white paper and does not necessarily endorse its findings or conclusions.