Fishing for Sustainable Policies — Political Causes of Over-fishing and Solutions for Sustainable Fisheries

Abstract

The intergovernmental Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has one department concentrating on fisheries and fisheriesrelated questions. The FAO collects data on fisheries landings from countries worldwide in order to produce global landing statistics. Every two years, the FAO publishes an extensive report on the “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (SOFIA). The most recent version was published in 2004 (FAO, 2004). As it normally takes up to two years to collect, process, analyse and publish the landing statistics, the most recent report from 2004 reflect the state of world fisheries in the year 2002. The SOFIA report can be found on the Internet under http://www.fao.org/sof/sofia/indexen.htm. Some of the main findings of this report are outlined below. All data on weight represent the live weight of fish.