Chinese New Year will see an increase in consumption of fish. Since the 1960s the global consumption of fish per capita has doubled from 9.9 kg to 20 kg per year. The population has also doubled in the same period. The global demand for fish is continuing to grow. China consumes over 30kg of fish per capita per year, Japan over 50kg.
There are global and national regulatory issues in managing fisheries, and this is a challenge for public policy. This seminar will focus primarily on corruption in fisheries and explore a research agenda for the study of this issue. It will seek to identify and develop better corruption prevention and governance processes to tackle illegal, unreported or unauthorised (IUU) fishing, processes which will lead to a more efficient and equitable distribution of this universally basic food stock.
There are several policy domains. There is a sustainability issue in being able to meet the growing demand for fish, especially as it relates to people in subsistence communities that rely on fishing for their survival. There is a legality issue. Approximately 90 million tonnes of wild fish are caught per year, and a further 60 million come from aquaculture. Of the wild fish, approx. 28% are illegal, unreported or unauthorised (IUU). This represents a dollar value of about $20 billion. The illegality often stems from corruption, lack of integrity and poor governance.