Medidas de Gestao das Pescarias Marinhas e Aquicultura 2019 The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018 | Page 8

FOREWORD
FOREWORD
and Supply Vessels (Global Record), a phased and
collaborative global initiative to make available
certified vessel data from State authorities, was
launched in 2017. The FAO Voluntar y Guidelines
on Catch Documentation Schemes for wild-
captured fish caught for commercial purposes
was approved in July 2017, while the FAO
Guidelines for the Marking of Fishing Gear to
assist in the prevention of abandoned, lost or
otherwise discarded fishing gear and its harmful
impacts will be tabled for approval at the 2018
session of the FAO Committee on Fisheries. The
successful implementation of PSM A, the Global
Record and these voluntar y g uidelines will mark
a turning point in the fight against IUU fishing
and in favour of the long-term conser vation and
sustainable use of living marine resources.
Human societies face the enormous challenge of
having to provide food and livelihoods to a
population well in excess of 9 billion people by
the middle of the twent y-first centur y, while
addressing the disproportionate impacts of
climate change and environmental degradation
on the resource base. The United Nations’ 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a
unique, transformative and integrative approach
to shift the world on to a sustainable and resilient
path that leaves no one behind.
Food and agriculture are key to achieving the
entire set of SDGs, and many SDGs are directly
relevant to fisheries and aquaculture, in
particular SDG 14 (Conser ve and sustainably use
the oceans, seas and marine resources for
sustainable development). Galvanized by public
and political attention, in June 2017 the United
Nations convened a high-level Ocean Conference
in New York to support the implementation of
SDG 14. This event was shortly followed by the
appointment of Peter Thomson of Fiji as the UN
Secretar y-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean
and the launch of the Communities of Ocean
Action, an initiative to track and build on the
over 1 400 voluntar y commitments registered and
announced at the Ocean Conference.
The Paris Agreement of the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC), which came into force on 4 November
2016, has also become omnipresent in the
international discourse on oceans. The
agreement, which aims at keeping the global
temperature rise this centur y well below 2 °C
above pre-industrial levels, recognizes the
fundamental priorit y of safeg uarding food
securit y and ending hunger. As co-leader of the
UNFCCC Oceans Action Agenda, and in support
of the Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture
launched at the twent y-third Conference of the
Parties to UNFCCC (COP 23), FAO has elevated
recognition of the essential role of fisheries and
aquaculture for food securit y and nutrition in the
context of climate change, especially in the
developing world.
The global momentum on SDG implementation
has framed much of the international discourse
since the publication of the 2016 edition of The
State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture. I would
particularly highlight the specific SDG 14 target
of ending illegal, unreported and unreg ulated
(IUU) fishing by 2020. On 5 June 2016, the
Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent,
Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and
Unreg ulated Fishing (PSM A) entered into force.
The first operational version of the Global Record
of Fishing Vessels, Refrigerated Transport Vessels
The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2018
highlights the critical importance of fisheries and
aquaculture for the food, nutrition and
employment of millions of people, many of whom
struggle to maintain reasonable livelihoods. Total
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