Grantly Galland: Many members of the RFMOs enjoy the fact, or are happy about the fact, that it’s not getting a lot of media coverage. And while things like the climate COP pulled away a thousand reporters or their biodiversity COP pulls away 300 reporters decisions are being made by RFMOs that impact billion dollar fisheries and take effect next year. And a lot of the bigger things are absolutely important, must be covered, but they’re philosophical in nature and long term, but RFMO decisions are taking effect in six months. Something that’s adopted that was adopted last week at ICAT or NEAFC will be in effect next year. And so these stories deserve to be told.

Mike DiGirolamo (narration): Welcome to the Mongabay Newscast. On your cohost, Mike DiGirolamo. Bringing you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet. And holding people in power to account. This podcast was recorded and edited on Gadigal land.

Today on the Newscast, we take you inside the murky world of regional fisheries management organizations. Stay with me. It’s pretty likely the commercial fish you buy, like the tuna on your sandwich. , is managed by one or more of these inter-governmental organizations, which are called RFMOs for short. They are made up of countries or member states that vote upon and create rules for managing fish stocks in the vast international waters or high seas. Just five tuna RFMOs manage fisheries in 91% of the world’s oceans. However, reporting on these inter-governmental entities. is incredibly difficult. As many of their meetings are closed to journalists and the public. This is a bit of a problem as our guest today will point out. Earlier in 2024, Mongabay hosted ocean policy expert Elizabeth Mendenhall on the Newscast to talk about the BBNJ treaty or biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction treaty. Which is supposed to serve as a framework for creating marine protected areas in these international waters. But she warned this agreement would allow inter-governmental maritime organizations like RFMOs. To continue to exploit the ocean. And MPAs in a business-as-usual fashion. All of this and more is explored on this podcast episode, which originally aired as a Mongabay webinar for journalists still it’s vital context for the general public to know precisely because as these panelists will point out, there is not enough media coverage of RFMOs, which are making consequential decisions that affect the overall health of biodiversity in the ocean. You’ll hear from Malavika Vyawahare, a Mongabay Africa staff writer. Grantly Galland the project director of the Pew Research Center’s, advocacy to international fisheries. And then finally, the secretary of an actual RFMO Darius Campbell from NEAFC, the Northeast Atlantic fisheries commission.

So first question, what is an RFMO? What do they do and why exactly do they exist? So Malavika or Grantly, go ahead and start us off.

Grantly: Malavika, please.

Malavika Vyawahare: So as Mike had pointed out at the top of the session, RFMOs are actually intergovernmental organizations, and their primary mandate is to manage fisheries sustainably. That is, that is what the technical definition is. For me as a journalist, when I look at an RFMO, what I actually what is interesting to me is that firstly, it’s an intergovernmental organization. So the important thing to take, note is that governments are the primary movers. So governments are at the table. They are there negotiating, discussing about how to manage fisheries that exist in a particular region. It’s usually this is basically linked to a, water body, the Indian Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the Northern Atlantic Ocean. South Atlantic Ocean. So fisheries in a particular geographic region. But RFMOs don’t have a broad mandate in the sense that they’re not looking at all marine species. They are very specifically looking at certain commercially important fisheries. Of late they’ve started like broadening that mandate, but this is what it is to begin with. The second thing is that. RFMOs are not just like a bunch of governments coming together and talking. RFMOs are ideally coming up with binding decisions, which is what makes them really interesting to cover, because, like I said, they’re not a bunch of people coming together to just talk. They’re also decisions that are coming out of RFMOs about fisheries management, about a lot of species that are really, facing, in an existential crisis they are threatened. If you’re reporting on fisheries, you should be looking at RFMOs really, carefully.

Grantly: And maybe I’ll just quickly add to your question about why do they exist. Historically, RFMOs were formed and existed to figure out how to divide the pie. That if all the fisheries of the world was a pie, we needed to know how to cut that pie into slices. And then they started at a time where we thought that the size of the pie was so big that we could never really affect the sustainability of those fisheries. And over time, however, of course, we have affected the sustainability of fisheries. And so now. RFMOs are spending a lot of time still dividing the pie, but a lot more time discussing the size of that pie and trying to ensure that it’s they’re only an appropriate amount is being taken and that an appropriate amount is being left behind for future fisheries, but also for other wildlife and just for nature itself. You know, That’s the why they exist really was at a time to prevent war over fisheries. But now, why do they exist to hopefully, as just mentioned, ensure long term sustainability of these fisheries, which is good for the coastal economies, businesses, the folks fishing on the water and it’s just a good practice.

Darius Campbell: Yeah, I think those are the good points to make. In terms of fisheries bodies, there are actually probably about 50 fisheries bodies around the world. But as has been said that the, difference with RFMOS is that they do have binding regulation. And that can be both in national waters and in international. They tend to focus on international, but the whole point they exist is that there are fish stocks that straddle between countries and into the high seas, and you need to manage those stocks as one. You can’t just have measures in the national waters when the fish might be being caught in international waters as well. And then the other thing to add is that nowadays most RFMOs, do have conservation objectives built into their conventions. But they tend to do that through the means of fishing. Even if they’re trying to achieve conservation objectives, it’s only fishing that they control. And therefore that, that’s the sort of aspect that we will cover, because they need to work with other sectors that are controlling other human activities.

Mike: Thanks for  those great points panel. Our next question there are about 17 RFMOs worldwide, but there’s a few key big players. So who are they? What kinds of influence do they have? And what should journalists know about them? Grantly, go ahead and start us off.

Grantly: Yeah, I’m happy to. And as Darius just mentioned, there are maybe 50 ish regional fisheries bodies, but a smaller number of those have real decision making authority to set binding rules that apply to all of their members and their cooperating non members. Those are the RFMOs and the big players question could be answered in 2 ways. 1 is the RFMOs that have influence over a huge area. So for example the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission manages more tuna fisheries than all of the other RFMOs combined. So any decision they make there is impacting absolutely enormous fisheries that are important to the economies of coastal of small islands and coastal states that are important over a huge swath of water. So very important issues being decided at the WCPSC on the other hand, in the Atlantic, there’s the international commission for the conservation of Atlantic tunas, or we call that ICAT and ICAT is very influential for a different reason. It’s a smaller area, smaller fisheries, but. There are 53 full members of ICAT. So that means all of those binding decisions that are taken at ICAT now need to go be implemented by 53 national governments around the Atlantic and even broader. And so that’s a huge amount of influence that ICAT has. And of course there among the RFMOs that manage other species, for example, where they’re managing just absolutely enormous fisheries for Atlantic mackerel and different small pelagic fishes. The small fishes living in the open ocean that are vitally important in a smaller across a small, smaller region. And so RFMOs can be very influential, but before I give up the mic, I just want to say the other way to answer that big player question are the members of the RFMOs because an RFMO itself is just made up of member governments. And we use that term governments because almost every RFMO includes the EU, which is not a state, it’s a collection of states. So it’s a government. And so the really, there are really important power players across the RFMOs by way of having a global fleet and being member of nearly all every RFMO. The European Union, Japan, China, the United States to a lesser extent, but still a substantial one. These are power players at the RFMOs as well. And of course, developing and coastal states around the world don’t want to be told what to do by the, big bad EU and U. S. anymore. So they’re having a growing voice and that i s both important, but also adds more voices to an already difficult forum. And RFMO decision making is hard.

Darius: Grantly’s covered actually probably most of the things I would have said as well. I think just. In terms of talking about influence. Yeah. it’s not just influence about economics, etc. food security is a big issue, which so that applies to the, these big tuna or pelagic smaller pelagic species, they’re a big part of global food security. So that’s an important thing in terms of influence. And I think the other thing about influence is to talk about, which of the RFMOs are modernizing and doing new things. So on conservation, on transparency, et cetera. So that’s another important influence. And as Grantly said, it’s particular countries that might be leading governments that might be leading that, that sort of influence and trend in, improved performance by the RFMOs.

Malavika: Yes, this is actually pretty much the landscape for what dominant players in RFMOs look like, but also there is, of course industry groups that form part of delegations, they are not necessarily the folks voting, it’s always the government delegates who have voting powers, but delegations also include members from industry trade groups , NGOs are often part of IOTC discussions as observers, they again do not have voting powers. But this question of like industry influence has been obviously reported on a bit as well because a lot of the fisheries that are managed by RFMOs are really commercially important species. Tuna is a famous example. It’s billions and billions of dollars worth of tuna fisheries around the world. But again, like I said, they are influential industry trade groups in the sense that they’re part of delegations and they work with the national delegates. And of course it’s open to interpretation. It’s something that’s, debated, questioned, reported on how much influence trade groups have. Within these negotiations and how they influence sort of the conservation agenda.

Mike (note): Hello again, listeners. And thank you for tuning into the Mongabay Newscast. If you’re enjoying the show and you want to support it, I encourage you to leave a review on the platform you’re tuning in on and subscribe. Doing both of these things helps support the show and bring it to a wider audience. And if you want to follow along with other Mongabay content, including this podcast, we have a weekly newsletter, which you can also subscribe to by clicking the button in the upper right corner of the landing page at mongabay.com. There’s actually a newsletter specifically for webinars, like the one you’re listening to right now. So go check it out. Thanks again. And back to the discussion on RFMOs.

We actually started to already get into the next question that I’m going to ask. So while our RFMO decision making processes involve input from lots of entities, like scientists, fishing interests and civil society groups, none of them get a vote on policy or rules. My question is, at the end of the day, who holds the power in RFMOs? Can you explain how these other entities interact with RFMOs and what happens when they come into conflict? Grantly or Darius, either of you can take this one.

Grantly: I do want to say that in many ways the industry does hold the power. The nuts and bolts of an RFMO, of course, requires government officials to make decisions, to negotiate those decisions. They may be from fisheries ministries, they may be from foreign ministries if they’re negotiating new treaty texts. So of course, yes, the governments are making those decisions, but in many instances, they think of the industry as their most important or even only stakeholder. And I’ve always joked much of my career has been at ICAT and the Atlantic, and I’ve always joked that the most influential person at ICAT is a gentleman who I won’t name today. But he works for industry, not for a government. And he has vessels fishing with eight different flags that are members of ICAT. And so he has influence on eight different delegations. And as a result is one of the most powerful people in the room. And yes, of course, we need to make sure that RFMOs are making their decisions based on the best science. In every case, an RFMO has a scientific body providing them advice, and it’s up to non government organizations like Pew, but also the industry to ensure that the decision makers are following that science. And then, of course, as you mentioned, there is the civil society component, but that’s really just an opportunity for the public to participate. And the public participates via organizations like mine that are accredited observers. All of those things should be taken into account of course, but often in practice, it’s the industry that kind of has the last word with the decision makers, but Darius, you’re often in those rooms that sometimes we’re not even in, I’m curious what your thoughts are.

Darius: Yeah, I, guess it, one thing to say from the beginning is that RFMOs are highly variable in their practice, in influence, I’m sure, and things like that. From what I’ve seen I would say that the prime, of course, the prime movers are the governments and the governments have their own social, economic, and environmental priorities, and they come to the negotiations with those. I don’t think at the negotiations, there’s a great deal, certainly in what I’ve seen, of influence from, anyone in particular, because I think the lines have already been set by the governments. Who those governments are influenced by will again vary, I think, a great deal, actually. Because conservation, they’re all NGOs when we talk about industry and environment, actually. So, we’ve got to be careful about the term civil society and NGOs, but basically the industry players and the NGOs are very powerful, both of them, I think, actually. And you certainly see that in, in the Northeast Atlantic, thinking of my governments organizations like Pew and others are very, influential on their policymaking. But at the end of it all, I presume the governments are just coming to their own decisions about, as I say, about their social, economic and environmental priorities. And you can easily see that between the different states. And it also reflects, their need or their, priority within national economics. So for instance, if you look at Iceland or Faroe’s, fisheries is absolutely central in their economies. For Europe and for, UK, it’s more about coastal communities when you’re looking at the social and economic perspectives. But the environmental is very, strong in, in Europe, for instance, or, UK.

So I think. I’m not uncomfortable from what I’ve seen about undue influence of industry. But yeah, Grantly’s experience might be different from mine, but I think, for a journalist looking in, I think they need to be a good journalist and see who’s making the moves within that process. But as I say, I think a lot of it goes on as governments come before the meeting, setting their lines, setting what their priorities are, rather than necessarily at the meeting. I don’t see industry people suddenly running up and telling a delegation what to do. I’ve never seen that.

Malavika: The question of who the dominant players are the another way of answering that question is just about, geopolitics, because it’s an intergovernmental organization, the power that governments hold is…it’s a direct correlation to how much power the country has and what it brings to the negotiating table. I think someone mentioned about the EU. Well the EU is part of, I think about more than a dozen or 10 RFMOs. It is a member in multiple RFMOs, and it has a huge sort of industry that relies on these fisheries. And, of course, the other, there are countries like China, there, there are countries who have, , interest massive interest. And all of that does come to bear upon these negotiations because, sometimes when I cover and I’ve done a little bit of coverage of RFMOs in particular, the IOTC the dynamic seems to be a bit similar to what you’ve seen climate talks. Just like the marine environment edition in some ways, because you there is this dynamic between Yeah, developed countries, developing states coastal countries, and distant water fishing nations, DWFNs and the influence of some countries is can be seen in just, like, how big their delegations are how they’re able to navigate that space work with other smaller countries Yeah, the dominant player question is also just a question of like how powerful certain governments are and how like they how that plays within negotiations. And I think that the EU has been singled out for its role in the IOTC. And we can get into that later. But yeah, I do want to highlight that certain governments have more power than others in these negotiations.

Darius: I think that’s a really important point. I certainly see it with my fellow RFMO secretaries when we’re talking, the differences are between, RFMOs like mine, where basically the coastal states are also the fishing states. So the, the interests are aligned. Then there’s other, RFMOs where the coastal states are not necessarily the fishing states and it’s distant fleets who are doing most of the fishing. So that dynamic between the different governments and their interests is, very specific to each RFMO. And as you say, yeah, there can also be this issue of, countries getting together, say as the coastal states who are resource poor as a blocking majority against actions by other states. it’s the usual international dynamics for any organization, whether it’s fisheries or anything else. There’s alliances and they change and there’s interests of different things. It’s the mix I guess that’s why it makes it an exciting world to work in as well and to report on

Mike: Thank you, everyone. So my next question pertains more to sort of the how you approach this as a journalist. So what would you highlight as some potential lines of inquiry or strategies of approach for journalists or news outlets that are looking to cover. RFMOs these could include story ideas or angles. And so Malavika, I’m going to throw this question to you.

Malavika: I would like to say unfortunately, I haven’t seen reportage that basically where the RFMO is the central character. A lot of times, reporting on the RFMO basically means that there’s reporting on a, on the fisheries sector or a particular species that relies on what is what includes what is happening at the policy level within RFMOs. But when covering RFMOs as a journalist, I find that, I track annual meetings, for example, closely. I track special sessions that RFMOs hold and a lot of work that goes on within the scientific committee. As someone had mentioned that sci scientific committees are a central part of, I think, most or almost all RFMOs. The science committees exist in all RFMOs. My work as a science journalist also involves looking at that. So there are certain, there are certain events that I track while covering RFMOs in the fishery sector. But in general, what I would say is that there are like a certain species which are famously endangered which are under the governance of RFMOs. And It’s when you are writing about these species. We cover RFMOs to see where the movement is in their management, in their governance, like what is the fate of the species and the RFMOs actually do hold a lot of power in that sense. So in the IOTC, the yellowfin tuna saga has been going on for years and years. And every time there’s an IOTC meeting. We do look out for what is going to change for this particular species. Thanks to the decisions made by the RFMO. Then, of course, there are like certain species that will be brought under the management of RFMOs because they are facing new threats or they have, they’ve suffered their populations are declining or other such factors. So one thing to look out for is, of course, what new elements are coming under the governance of RFMOs. And then of course there are success stories sometimes and that’s always really hopeful when decisions have been made and those have actually led to changes or improvements in the situation of certain species or for certain, for example, sustainable fisheries practices. So that’s, I think, an important way to approach this. This is limited. What I’d also like to highlight is there are broader trends that are happening. For example, I think someone had pointed out the fact that conservation and this idea that fisheries are just not commodities. It’s not just resources. We need to preserve them so that for sustainability, but not just sustainable fisheries, but just for the sake of like marine conservation itself. And I think that sort of is being increasingly enshrined within RFMOs. So I think that it’s important to look for that shift from just being places where the pie is being divided to place where. Yeah. you’re looking at how the pies be preserved and how you can improve the health of populations and improve the health of the ecosystem as a whole. And yeah, I think again, the dynamic between like distant water fishing nations and coastal nations is always interesting. It leads to some of the most interesting negotiations, some of the most interesting sort of stories. So I think that’s something to look out for. And again, yeah, like I said, decisions are being made at RFMOs and those are always interesting to cover in terms of what it means for a particular species and biodiversity.

Grantly: I totally agree with everything you just said. And thank you for saying all of that. And one thing I just wanted to pick up on and, maybe reiterate is The idea that you have to commit to a longer timeline than just the RFMO meeting itself. The way that organizations like mine can be successful is that we commit to a 12 month schedule if we’re gonna try to be influential at an RFMO and I know it’s a lot to ask, but I’m asking journalists to commit to that 12 month schedule as well. Because there is an interesting story to tell when the scientists meet. And there is an interesting story to tell right before the, RFMO meets on what is to be expected. Some of the best examples that we’ve had are when folks do both of those stories, plus a mid meeting update and an end of meeting wrap up. And I know it seems crazy that someone can write four stories about the same RFMO, especially when so many of them meet in November, at the same time as the climate COP or the biodiversity COP, but there, there’s not a lot of media coverage on RFMOs. There’s there is some certainly, but there’s not a ton. And I. With my colleagues, cultivate a list of journalists that we pitch every time we go to an RFMO and, sometimes we hear, from some, but journalists also should cultivate their list of experts that they might call for a comment, even if they haven’t been pitched. Sometimes get frustrated when a reporter I’ve pitched 10 times about an RFMO does a story about that RFMO without calling me, so it’s just committing over the long term and trying to cultivate that list of experts, just like I cultivate a list of reporters and, maybe that’s a way to start pulling back the curtains a little bit, because the fact of the matter is, and Darius may disagree here, but the fact of the matter, from my perspective, is that the many members of the RFMOs enjoy the fact, or are happy about the fact, that it’s not getting a lot of media coverage. And while things like the climate COP pulled away a thousand reporters or their biodiversity COP pulls away 300 reporters decisions are being made by RFMOs that impact billion dollar fisheries and take effect next year. And a lot of the bigger things are absolutely important, must be covered, but they’re philosophical in nature and long term, but RFMO decisions are taking effect in six months. Something that’s adopted that was adopted last week at ICAT or NEAFC will be in effect next year. And so these stories deserve to be told. And so I think it’s just figuring out how to commit to those long term timelines and develop that really good story. And I’ll also just acknowledge for any funders who may see this that sometimes that ability to really get in there requires some external funding and some there have been some great partnerships between reporters and funders to allow for that longer term, story and I hope that we can have more of that as well

Darius: Yeah, I think it’d be good to add some points on this and I don’t agree. I don’t disagree with you Grantly at all no, I think with all, because I’m not a journalist but you’re all experts on it, but I think understanding what the processes are is really important so that you can actually understand what is supposed to be happening so you know when it’s not happening. The good example is, if there’s good scientific advice and then the parties don’t follow it, then it’s clear that they’ve failed in doing that particular issue. I think talking to people, whether it’s the government people, the industry people, the environmental NGOs, you’ll, the more you talk to people, the more you’ll understand what’s going on behind the scenes. They won’t, none of them will give you a view without some bias, it’s your judgment about things. And I don’t think you should take anything on face value really. Malavika made the point about good stories and bad stories. Yeah. There are good news stories. Bluefin tuna is a, recovery at least that started. But I know in journalism always there’s it’s the bad news that’s more interesting. But I think, for me, it’s about avoiding sort of lazy stereotypes that all RFMOs are terrible, or that somehow that if you got rid of them things would be better. Because I don’t think that’s true there. Generally organizations that are doing their best to manage something in a very difficult environment. The sea is very difficult to understand what’s going on. Most of the stocks are very difficult to analyze and predict. And it’s difficult to enforce, but actually there’s a lot going on with well managed RFMOs that are doing a great deal of success. And there are things that need to be exposed by journalists when that’s not happening or if there’s corruption behind the scenes or whatever. So I think, there are interesting stories there. And Grantly, the point that you made is really one that I certainly noticed going from an environmental intergovernmental organization to a fisheries, one, is that the decisions we make in NEAFC in November have immediate response in January when the people start fishing according to those regulations, you’ll see many organizations with many fantastic grand plans for MPAs or whatever they might be, and they don’t actually get realized for 10 years or 20 years. So I think, there are exciting and immediate stories coming out of fisheries, which are there. But yeah, as you as, I say, you really need to understand what’s going on beyond the surface, because I think often you don’t see what’s going on in the surface, just because people are negotiating. It’s, it’s a difficult process to understand unless you really do look into it properly.

Mike: And so speaking of what’s going on underneath the surface. So critics , have often said that RFMOs are designed to encourage secrecy. Whereas others defend current practices, such as closed meetings as being necessary to conduct sensitive negotiations. My question for the panel is what are some roadblocks that journalists are likely to encounter when covering these meetings on RFMOs. Are there any examples of news articles about RFMOs that you think are particularly well done? And Malavika, I’m going to direct this one at you first.

Malavika: Thanks, Mike. I think it’s a chance to maybe speak for myself and maybe some of my colleagues as well. I do want to say that I think journalists appreciate like how important RFMOs are. And I think there is. decent coverage, even actually within Mongabay. We do have a lot of reporting on RFMOs. I know in mainstream media, the Guardian does a lot of reporting. The Hakai Magazine, shout out to them. They, are unfortunately closing end of this year, but they also did a fair amount of, reporting on RFMOs. Though, yeah, as I think it’s been pointed out, it’s definitely not enough. What I absolutely do want to say is that if organizations like Pew are on would consider themselves in the periphery of the decision making process. Media organizations are actually beyond that periphery, like we are not actually granted access to most of these negotiations from my experience. And I, can’t speak for the IOTC. I will not say what others have experienced with other RFMOs, but the IOTC as a principle explicitly says that media organizations will not be allowed to be part of this of the negotiations. We cannot register. There’s no media registration. I’ve tried a couple of times, so I can tell you that. And the other thing is that I was actually advised at one point to be part of a delegation, which I didn’t. Like it’s journalistic ethics. I don’t think would allow journalists to be actually part of delegations from countries. So actually, this idea that journalists will get a better understanding of what’s happening in the negotiations by talking to various folks and getting a holistic picture, that actually applies. And I think most journalists would try to do that. It’s just that our presence at these meetings is not really welcomed and that’s a problem because I’ve actually in my attempts to get access to these negotiations. I’ve been told that you should wait for reports that come out of these meetings because I mean they’re going to come out with the reports of what’s happened. Unfortunately, that’s really not how that’s not really conducive to journalism because it’s a bit like being handed a can of tuna when you could be holding the real fish. Like you need to feel the room, you need to see the room, you need to see what’s going on with the negotiations. And getting like reporting on like reports from the RFMOs, which is, it just doesn’t work because all these reports are coming out after two, three days. And they are in many ways sanitized versions of what’s happening within the negotiations without access to the actual negotiations. We cannot get a sense of what is happening, and I can give you an example of this within the IOTC, I think 2023, they had passed a resolution to basically regulating, drifting fish aggregating devices, which are generally considered harmful for tuna populations, especially uh, yellowfin tuna and, the resolution infamously was it’s one of the first times I think in history that, that, measure, which is supposed to be binding was actually nullified over, I think, the next six months because the parties raised objections. Now, the objections to that resolutions are on the website of the IOTC, but the actual initial sort of decision making process, it’s a secret ballot, so we don’t know who’s voted for what, and then we don’t know what’s happened over that period where the objections have come through, which has ended up in that measure being nullified. I spoke to multiple people, and I can tell you that it’s people have different varying like versions of what’s happened, but without actually access to the negotiations it’s really, it’s hard for journalists to call, make value judgments about what’s transpired and make subjective conjectures and the second thing I would like to point out is that this idea of reporting based on what’s being provided to you by the RFMOs. Unfortunately, if I, as a journalist, am doing that, I’ve already lost the narrative because a lot of industry groups, a lot of even NGOs who are part of these negotiations, are putting out their own material. They are, they have their, you have industry, they have trade magazines, trade outfits, trade publications. You have your own press releases. If I, as a journalist, wait for three days to get the official document and write a story on that, by that time, the story is already out. The narrative is already out and it’s just going to get lost in that, sea of information that’s out there. So that I do want to point out is a problem. And I think journalists would be more than willing and happy to be at these meetings if you were given a chance.

Grantly: Yeah, I just wanna mention that it’s not, first of all, that’s not restricted to IOTC, that’s every RFMO, the media is not allowed in the room. And there are reasons I’m sure, but in the spirit of transparency, it doesn’t really meet the grade. Of course, but it’s not common practice in ocean governance beyond the RFMOs. If you think about the convention on the trade of endangered species CITES, that’s those meetings are live streamed, including the votes, which are public votes. And similarly many other important governance meetings can be watched right on the internet. And there was a striking moment where this landed for me when I was at a, an ICAT meeting in the Atlantic. Listening to a discussion about shark management there at ICAT. And it happened to be at the same time when there was a vote happening at CITES about sharks, and we were all sitting in the back of the room, live streaming the CITES meeting, watching that vote come in. While we were participating in a closed meeting or at least close to the media in the form of ICAT. And all those members of the RFMOs are also parties to the CITES or parties to the UNFCCC or, others. So this, it’s not out of the question that these meetings could be cracked open, but they have not been so far. And that’s, you asked about barriers. That’s, the barrier right there.

Darius: Yeah, it’s an interesting discussion on that. One thing I would say is that if you look at the older RFMOs, including NEAFC, from the 1960s, nothing was transparent, everything was not available. Now things have changed. And I think nearly all the RFMOs are modernizing, becoming much more transparent on all sorts of things, their, vessel registers, their decisions, for instance, NEAFC, we do publish our vote. So you can see who voted for what exactly for every measure and the reasons they gave. And but that transparency that is increasing, as you say, is more for observers than journalists. And yes, I’m also used to the ocean governance world where it’s not, negotiations aren’t usually open for journalists to attend. The logic, whether you agree with it or disagree with it, is that what, certainly what governments seem to be uncomfortable with is that the temptation to grandstand to an audience, to score points about how green they’ve been or whatever, by having journalists in the room is something that they think actually be better, to report it afterwards is fine, but that people are actually making their decisions and being honest about what they want. So that’s, the logic, whether you agree with it or not. But I agree with you as soon as, the meeting’s over, it should be available. In terms of who you can talk to, whatever. And certainly I do know even after this meeting, a journalist immediately got in touch with me afterwards to say they’d heard this, that, and the other from people who’d attended. So people are obviously talking but as I say, the restriction normally is not on live reporting and not on live tweeting by the observers for that reason about grandstanding. And then there’s another issue about transparency, which again, I think, is up for debate. We have information about individual vessels. We have information about court cases, that sort of thing that’s discussed usually in committees, not in the plenary or the main meeting. That’s where there’s still some limitations even for observers. Again, that’s something that I think all of this is evolving and maybe in 10 years time we’ll be seeing streaming from it all but it’s, a process that, yeah, is trying to balance openness with making sure that these processes carry on as best as possible. But yeah, I don’t know where the balance and where the line is. I think it’s still up for debate and probably is evolving anyway.

Mike: Thank you very much, panelists. Quick note just before we move on to the next question. It was mentioned earlier that Hakai magazine is closing. Their senior staff will actually be merging over to bioGraphic, which is an outlet based in San Francisco. And so I believe that is happening. I just wanted to point that out. The next question is… I’ve got 2 examples here I want to share with you. So for 2 years, members of the commission for the conservation of Antarctic Marine living resources, China and Russia have blocked the establishment of marine protected areas in the Southern Ocean. Despite the fact that this RFMO is committed to creating a network of MPAs. So in this case, just two states blocked the implementation of that hampering protection efforts. And then there’s another case where Aotearoa New Zealand and the Faroe Islands blocked bottom trawling rules that would have limited bottom trawling via the SPRFMO. So that’s another example where two states blocked rules. So my question for the panel is, do all RFMOs function in this manner where one country can derail biodiversity protection? From a conservation perspective, what are RFMOs strengths? And conversely, How do they fall short?

Darius: I’m happy to start on that. Obviously, I don’t know the details of either organization and their decisions. I’d say CAMLR is an unusual case, because it straddles the line between an RFMO and a regional seas convention. it’s neither. It’s because it’s managing conservation as well as managing conservation explicitly, as well as fisheries management. But generally, I think you’ll see nearly all RFMOs, and actually in a lot of the regional seas conventions as well. And now in the BBNJ, you’ll see some of that as well. general reality that governments don’t bind themselves to international agreements that give them no leeway for any national decision making. They’re very few and far between where there is where they’re willing to sign up to where there’s not either an objection procedure, which means that you can vote through something and if it goes through by majority and that’s what the rules of that organization allow, then, a country can object. That’s the process we have in NEAFC. So we have votes it could go through on a majority and then if a country is particularly unhappy about an agreement, it can object. Lots of people are not happy about that, but that’s where we are. The other way you can do it is to agree by, only by consensus. So that’s the examples where you’ve talked about where a country can block it. So neither is particularly satisfactory, but that’s the reality of international agreements, I think, whether they’re fisheries or anything else. In the BBNJ, you can also see, sorry, the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement. Again, there is a process there where, which they have an objections procedure. So I think it’s just the reality, how do you get sovereign governments to agree together in a process that is a little bit outside their control, because other people are voting on it whatever and get them engaged and get them involved. And I think there’s arguments for both sides, but it’s really about how do you persuade others to do something that might not be in their national interest or national priority but you want them to do it. that’s what negotiations all about. It’s a tricky business.

Grantly: And if I may just quickly add yeah, the consensus-based management is both the frustration, but also an important part of this, because if you achieve consensus, then that means you’ve adopted something that now everyone will go away and do and most RFMOs do you have that voting capability. But man, do the members avoid calling for a vote like you would not believe. And that’s because if you vote no, you can exempt yourself from the measure. And no one wants to have a situation where a measure includes everybody, but maybe the biggest player who voted no. So that’s why the governments often work hard to try to achieve consensus, but it does mean that the ultimately achieved policy might not be as strong as one would hope for and might not be as strong as, 52 of the 53 members would have wanted based on how they would have voted. You need that 53rd member. If you’re trying to cover that, that fishing activity. Also, it’s just, since you mentioned the example that “sprifmo” the SPRFMO, we call it “sprifmo” that, New Zealand example is an interesting story because it was a case of a change in domestic government leading to a change in their international positions. So there are some interesting stories to be told there as well. As governments change, the people at the microphone may change, or at least the, folks giving them the, their instructions do change, and that might lead to a situation where a champion of a proposal may end up ultimately becoming the one that blocks that proposal. And there’s a million stories to write about RFMOs. Trust me

Malavika: And Mike, if I could just add, I guess I pointed to this example of the drifting fads, the dFADs decision that ultimately got killed at the IOTC. I do want to say that in that case. I know the European Union gets vilified in other contexts. There has been some reporting on how the EU functions in the Indian Ocean region. Some of it, criticism is justified. Some of it, is debatable whether it’s justified or not. But in this case, as I think Darius was pointing out when you object to certain conservation measures, you actually become exempt from them. So in the case of the dFADs, for example, the yellowfin tuna is actually heavily fish using fish aggregating devices. The European Union fleet uses most of the dFADs. So for them to agree to a measure that sort of restricts the use of these devices basically means bringing harm to their like fisheries industries in a major way. It’s not something that’s it’s not something as a news. It’s something that everyone knows that this, will happen in the EU has really, put its weight behind blocking these measures. So at the same time, I definitely would want to say that I think as Grantly was pointing out, coastal states have actually become more assertive from what I’ve seen in the IOTC over the years. They have actually begun to there has been push back. There have been alignments that have changed but ultimately a lot of it does come back to even their own interests. And in that sense, it’s. Dominance is like the dominance of, for example, the EU is also is being challenged at the IOTC because coastal states have their own interest in preserving certain fisheries. yeah, it’s not as clear cut. I think. no one is, I think, running rough shod over others. And as Grantly was saying, there are a lot of stories to be told about how, like, how these negotiations happen and how, some countries and some players are able to influence others through RFMO’s own rules and regulations,

Darius: Just on the sort of flip side of this all, is to think about the reason the countries are objecting or not coming to consensus is because they are serious about implementing the measures. So they don’t want to be bounced by something they will have to implement. So I think that’s the other side for the journalists to think about when organizations like mine make a commitment to do something, are they delivering on it? I’m quite proud that we’ve got a very good enforcement mechanism, got monitoring control. We’ve got ports and state and at sea inspection, et cetera, et cetera. So we can deliver on things we commit to. So I think that’s the other side of the story. Let them, see where they’ve actually made the commitments and then see are they actually delivering on what they’ve committed themselves to. And I think that’s the flip side. It shows that parties are taking these organizations seriously and not committing themselves to things that they just won’t do.

Grantly: That’s a great point from Darius. And in fact, I’m going to give a specific example and mention Japan by name and that. Japan often has the reputation of holding back new kind of progressive measures at RFMOs. They also have a reputation of nearly perfect compliance. They, follow every rule that they agree to almost perfectly. And so they, from their perspective, every new rule that they agree to on an RFMO is a new rule that they will implement with their fleets. And they’re not convinced that other fleets are doing the same. So they’re they feel like they have a political argument to hold back some of these new measures. And so that can be very frustrating in the room, of course, but that’s balanced on the other side of the coin, like Darius is saying that with the compliance that they’re all but guaranteeing from their fleets. There’s good and bad about every member of, every or from it.

Mike: Thank you, everyone. Those are really good, thoughts and good insights. We’re going to switch gears a little bit. I want to talk about there’s been a report from the financial transparency coalition that identified cases of forced labor on 475 vessels since 2010, and many of these are commonplace on the high seas. From a human rights perspective, are RFMOs doing enough? How do RFMOs keep an eye on things like labor rights currently? And how, if at all, are they addressing or planning to address the issue of forced labor rights on the high seas? Darius, I believe I have you as someone to answer this one first.

Darius: Sure. Yeah. yeah, this is a shocking issue really finding what has happened in states. You don’t even expect it to occur even those in more common in states, you might expect it to occur. I think, generally, I got in touch with a lot of my colleagues. It seems to be like this is an issue that’s being addressed more and more by RFMOs. They’re all either developing or just have developed new recommendations or, guidelines on this issue. I think just to think about in terms of how you’re reporting on it is to look at, some RFMOs for instance, NEAFC, we have very well resourced parties and they tend to do things at the national level rather than doing them at the regional level because all the six states have got powers. In other RFMOs, you’ll find where there’s perhaps less resource available at the national level. That’s where you’ll see the RFMO tends to take the lead on, on developing legislational guidelines. But ultimately, in all of these, it’s the flag that will have to implement national legislation to make sure that actually these things are implemented. Yeah, as I say, you, there’s certainly a trend now for several RFMOs to start addressing this issue. As a journalist, I think you’ll want to follow it right through from the regional, if it’s happening at the regional level, to the national level and see if it’s being implemented by the vessels and national legislation,

Grantly: And just to quickly add that it’s not only forced labor, as far as labor issues go, it’s not only forced labor. So Darius is exactly right. Almost every RFMO is starting to address this very recently, like in the last three or four years founding new working groups or new resolutions, like you mentioned. But. Fishing is extremely dangerous, even beyond the forced labor issues. And a report that Pew worked on and co funded with some other organizations concluded that at least a hundred thousand people die each year fishing. And so we’re talking about a very dangerous activity that, requires some more oversight and there are non RFMO bodies out there, the international labor organization, the international maritime organization. There’s a, we’re currently gaining members or parties to what will be the Cape Town agreement when that enters into force, hopefully soon. So those bodies are recognizing this, and now RFMOs are trying to take the steps that they can and should take as well. So hopefully we’ll have more progress on this, but we’re, really talking about a case of life or death and a case of many cases, 475 of forced labor as well. So it’s certainly not something to ignore, but something that RFMOs historically would not have would not have taken up, but are now.

Malavika: I just want to quickly add, I think Darius mentioned this business of like flag of the vessel. I think within like the space experts work on it are pretty much aware of this distinction between, who owns the vessel, who’s the beneficial owner and actually under what flag a vessel flies, a vessel actually flies on the waters. I think this is something also reporters sometimes like I in my reporting have come up with this, come up come across this, issue where I’ve done a ton of reporting and then it turns out that this business of like where a vessel is flagged kind of undermines the implementation of certain rules and regulations, including labor laws, in the sense that even if a vessel is owned and the money invested in it is from a national for certain country. If the vessel is playing with the flag of, let’s say Panama country like Seychelles the laws of those countries apply to that vessel. So you really have to be careful about, what laws actually come into force for vessels. There’s really a murky world where who owns a vessel and whose laws actually apply to the vessels is might be two different things altogether. And RFMOs, I think in recent years have started to address the issue of beneficial ownership as well. This idea that, who owns the vessel and who’s, who, which flag it applies under that information should be public so people know about it. This is slightly tangential to the issue of labor laws, but I just thought I’d put it out there for other journalists who are listening in.

Mike: Thank you, Malavika. The next question I have is maybe a bit of a piggyback on the question before the one I just asked. So when a state joins an RFMO, it agrees to abide by the rules of that RFMO. However, many countries still don’t play by the rules. So in those circumstances, what happens? Grantly, you just talked about the case of Japan. They follow every rule that they agree to. So when countries don’t follow the rules, do, they continue extracting in any way they please? How do RFMOs become aware of bad behavior? And then how do they enforce the rules when they do? Darius, you can take us away on this one.

Darius: Yeah. Okay. Well if an RFMO is functioning properly, it should be, poor performance on any of the rules should come to light through joint inspections, port inspections, monitoring of the vessels. And nowadays, there’s external sources like Global Fish Watch as well, Fishing Watch as well. I think poor performance now it can come to light much more easily than it used to in the past. And I’m fairly confident that, a good functioning RFMO can do that. And then, as with all international agreements, pretty much the enforcement of that on the state then is a question of peer pressure from the other states, naming and shaming. And of course journalists have a fantastic role in that as well. So that the state that is not following the rules is is forced to start thinking about complying. And then there’s more effective rules in fisheries as well, where vessels for flags that are not performing well, can start being listed as IUU, which is illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. And then those vessels won’t be able to access ports or fuel or services and unload their things. So that’s a very effective means of starting to put the pressure on poor performance. And then there’s nowadays also different states such as the European Union are using their regulation on illegal fishing to do yellow cards and red cards, which can stop imports from the flag state of that vessel. So those mechanisms are working, but I think, again, as a journalist, when you’re covering it, the mechanisms, there’s very few, very, few international agreements at all in any sector that impose a penalty or, the, countries don’t sign up to things that take away national jurisdiction from themselves in that sense. The other thing is, of course, there are dispute resolution mechanisms within RFMOs to fight out some arguments like that, or they can be referred even to the international tribunal for the law of the sea, which relates to the UN law of the sea. There’s lots of different things, but I don’t think things are black and white, but they’re clearly the more as journalists you could be exposing them, the more likely that the pressure will yield in various ways.

Mike: Did anyone have anything to add to that?

Grantly: I might just quickly say that this will be the most difficult thing for you as journalists to cover because it’s the part of the RFMO business that’s maybe least open, even to observers like Pew, the naming and shaming is an important part of even what Darius just said between States trying to get the colleagues to follow the rules as, something that the States have to do, but naming and shaming is a, is an important tool here. And it’s one that’s really difficult because we. Even as accredited observers, we might not find out who broke the rules or what rules specifically were broken, or which vessel out there was the reason that flag was an agenda item on a meeting. Now it’s also true that all, most of the RFMOs post publicly an IUU vessel list, a list of the vessels that. That they’ve identified as having participated in illegal, unreported, or unregulated fishing. And usually they mean illegal fishing in that case. And sometimes those are shared amongst RFMOs so that one bad, actor can not just move to a new fishery across the globe. But Yeah, this is just, if the biggest barrier to covering RFMOs is not being in the room, then the place where that’s the most obvious is the figuring out who it is that are breaking those rules.

Darius: Sorry, can I just add to that? I think most RFMOs now do have public compliance reports. So as an example with ours, you will go through all the regulations line by line and say, have there been any cases raised that need further investigation, et cetera. Is it going through a court case, et cetera? And ultimately we’ll have a report saying whether a fine was applied or not. So you can follow at least in our RFMO and plenty of others, the, things that have been broken, rules that have been broken by which country’s vessels, et cetera. You won’t find the individual vessel data on that and hardly ever, I don’t think, but what you could do, for instance, if you know a fishing vessel has broken the rules on, on, I don’t know going into an area that’s closed. If you then looked at the national court reports, you will find whether that vessel was fined and what the fine was. So again, it, involves a lot of labor for the journalist, but there’s a lot more transparency on that than their used to be. We started publishing compliance reports only five or six years ago. And most of the RFMOs, again, it’s been a more recent activity of being that transparent about what’s happening.

Malavika: I also just want to add, Mike, that yes, I, Darius, I think I have seen a couple of compliance reports even with the IOTC and I think having those compliance committees and that documentation is really is helpful for journalists. In terms of actually punishing bad actors. I think like there are two things like really, how you define bad actors. This example of Japan and the idea that you know when they agree to certain rules, they actually stick to the rules. So the it’s there are two things right. Bad actors can be those entities that are actually pushing ambition down. So they’re, not, they’re not allowing measures that in general agreement would lead to more sustainable fisheries. So just pushing, putting the ambition down. And, then that rule and regulation basically helps you meet a lowered ambition. So that’s also like bad actor behavior. The other thing is that you have those rules and regulations in place and then you don’t comply with them, which I think was Darius had mentioned about compliance reports and how to track that. I have seen a case, I think, in the IOTC where Spain, I think in 2018 underreported their catch because as these are governance organizations and you divide the pie, so countries are given quotas. And bad acting could also mean you under report quota. So you’re basically overfishing, right? And in this case, it’s not really punishment. But what was done was that their quota for the next year was or the a couple of years later when it actually came to light. Was reduced. So I think that’s one of the ways that that, countries are being are punished. And to this point of having access to more information to figure out actually where those contraventions are happening, I think, like remote sensing data has been used by a lot of NGOs to track vessels to see where and when they’ve been active. It’s more and more like available to, general public to be able to figure out if, for example, vessels are operating areas they’re not supposed to be operating in are putting at times when they’re not supposed to be operating in and things like that. So I think remote sensing based data has been used by NGOs and I as a journalist also rely on a lot of NGO reports to figure out if there have been issues with compliance. So…

Mike: Thank you, panelists. We’ve used the term on this webinar, which is called ‘high seas’. And I just want to take a second to sort of explain that to our listeners here. But there’s also another principle called the ‘common heritage’ principle. And I think it’s important to highlight what that is, too. So what exactly is the common heritage principle and the freedom of the high seas principle? And what are the differences between these 2? How do RFMOs interact with or observe these principles? And are there any clashes or conflicts that can occur that you think journalists should dig into here? Grantly, you can take this one.

Grantly: Sure, but I’m definitely going to ask my panel, my fellow panelists to uh, comment on this one because it’s not my area of expertise. I did talk to some colleagues who work on the BBNJ agreement. And they gave me a little bit of a primer on it, and it occurred to me right away that the, answer is obvious from the RFMO perspective. So the freedom of the High Seas principle is, something that has been a informal principle for many hundreds of years and was codified in the UN law of the Sea Treaty. And that basically says that the high seas are beyond the national jurisdiction of every, of any national government and therefore, anyone can do whatever they want. It’s the truly it’s right in the name, freedom of the high seas. It’s for everybody to do anything. As opposed to the common heritage principle, which basically says, if it’s beyond those areas of national jurisdiction, then it’s owned by everyone. So everyone should equitably benefit from the resources that are there and mining resources are ones as one that are often mentioned in that principle. Both of these are actually codified in the law of the sea, but 15 years later in the UN fish stocks agreement of 1995 there’s, there was really clear language agreed to by all the parties of which that includes almost every coastal state in the world. And that basically said, if you’re going to operate in the high seas, if you’re going to fish in the high seas, then you need to do that in collaboration with other states. And you do that collaboration via an RFMO. So yes, the freedom of the high seas principle tends to win out at the RFMOs. These are bodies that are put in place to manage fishing. Fishing is, any state can fish in the high seas but the, fish stocks agreement qualified that a little bit by saying, at minimum, you’ll, we will, because it’s a agreement of the members. We will coordinate within RFMOs when we do that. And that’s, how we ended up in, in the situation where we’ve recently had many new RFMOs be founded. And there are still some RFMOs to that probably need to be founded. But that’s a way of ensuring that the freedom of the high seas principle doesn’t lead to folks just driving things right to zero and that’s my best interpretation of those two and how it applies to RFMOs, but I’m hoping my fellow panelists may have some comments as well.

Darius: Do you want to go first Malavika?

Malavika: Yeah, so actually I would also qualify my statements by saying I’m also no expert in the common heritage principle, unfortunately. But from what I like from what I understood from what little I have seen about the common heritage principle for me, I just, it seemed like a natural progression from it’s in a time when we, as I think Darius said, or Grantly had pointed out earlier where we considered like fisheries resources as a, as like unlimited resource. So basically, free for all, whoever was most efficiently able to extract and exploit was doing it. Then we moved on to a space where we were talking about common resources, which is I think where the RFMOs, I think, currently are still at, where we consider that this is a common resource and that we, want to preserve it for being able to exploit it sustainably in the future. But I think with the common heritage principle and what we’re seeing now is the idea that, it’s a heritage. It’s not just a resource. It’s something that deserves to be protected for the sake of being protected. There’s marine genetic resources that, that should be protected, not just because we want to be able to exploit a particular fish stock in the future but also something that’s a heritage common to parties and that’s worth protecting. Just for that reason actually.

Darius: Yeah, I think we’re all there. None of, I don’t know if any of us, I don’t think any of us are lawyers. I’m not a lawyer, so I won’t pontificate on the, law of the sea, but I, think on, the freedom of the high seas side. Yes. The, UN fish stocks agreement is reflecting the fact that the reality is for nearly all these stocks that we’re talking about, the fish stocks, they’re not just in the high seas, or nearly all of them are also in national jurisdiction in EEZ. So the interests of maintaining a stock in good status and not just in the universal bit, but they’re also in the national interest bit. So I think that’s part of the reason why you have these regional organizations that can manage stocks whether they’re, a big region like tuna stocks or whether they’re a small region like our fisheries. That justifies the way that the UN Fish Stocks Agreement talks about regional fisheries management organizations and, states with an interest in the fishery already. Whether they’re coastal states or distant water with fleets. So I think that’s the real driver to think about that in the sense. Just think about the practical you’re managing stocks that straddle both national and international waters.

Mike: Thank you, panelists, so I have to tell you some context for this next question. So we’re going to talk a little bit about the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction agreement, which we’ve mentioned quite a few times already, actually. So this agreement was adopted under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It was the third agreement to be reached under UNCLOS, and it took nearly two decades of debate to do it. And so it was finally adopted in June of 2023. It needs 60 nations to ratify it before it comes into effect legally, and so far, I believe it has 14. So part of the function of this agreement is that it is the mechanism by which marine protected areas are to be established on the high seas, which we’ve just talked about. However, there is not a governance body to enforce the rules of these marine protected areas currently, and they are all subject to the rules and the priorities of RFMOs. So I just wanted to get that context out of the way there. And breach the next question. So how are RFMOs preparing to function within the BBNJ agreement? What roadblocks or opportunities do they foresee and Darius, I’m going to kick this question to you.

Darius: Yeah, and I’m very happy to talk about it, seeing as I’ve been involved in the BBNJ since about 2007, working for the UK, then working for OSPAR, and now working for NEAFC. So it’s something that, a process that’s very close to my heart. And as you mentioned, I guess there’s two big areas of interest for RFMOs, one is the environmental impacts assessment aspect of the agreement, which might have implications for us in the future. And the other is marine protected areas. And just to mention in that side, I think most RFMOs who’ve been involved in the process, and plenty haven’t, so they need to get up to speed, understand that there are real opportunities actually in the BBNJ, because fisheries are not the only sector involved in the high seas. Obviously there’s shipping, there’s potentially mining cable laying, which I think has not much impact, but basically we, and of course there’s other external impacts on the marine environment from climate change, etc. So we all have an interest in being able to work together as effectively as possible to protect the resources, both for conservation and biodiversity needs and also for exploitation and of course, fisheries, unlike the other sectors, intimately, absolutely relies on the ecosystem of biodiversity for its benefits. Shipping and mining don’t really in the end. So we e have an interest. We have an, for instance, in NEAFC we have a historical cross sectoral work with OSPAR on marine environment. So we understand how it works. And I think there’s real opportunities for management of these areas depending on what the biodiversity objectives are for them, depending on what can be done in terms of measures that allow sustainable fishing or restrict it to certain extents to, to achieve those objectives. All that’s got to be done through really close working between all the interested parties, whether they’re coming from an environment side or a fishery side or whatever. So I hope that we’ll have a process that basically co creates these areas. And then that way we balance the social, economic, food security, environmental outcomes of all that the governments are all aiming for. And as I say, I think the BBNJ offers a real opportunity to do that more effectively. Especially on the issue which has been lacking so far, which is where OSPAR, for instance, has delineated some MPAs in the high seas. Unlike RFMOs, it can’t enforce those. It can’t stop anybody going into them from around the world. So I think, when we have a global system, when an MPA is designated under BBNJ, it actually has global enforcement effects. And again, that given the real practical experience RFMOs have, again, we should be harnessed to work on, that side. Because again, if you’re talking about enforcing for fisheries, we will be the ones that can deliver that. I guess if it’s enforcing for shipping, then it will be IMO that does that. But basically I see it as an opportunity. I think the worry I would have is if people within the BBNJ process don’t want to engage and want to push ahead with closures or whatever, without engaging with, the sectors they need to, which is mining, fishing, shipping, et cetera. So I think it’s an opportunity and it’s great after all this time we’ve actually got somewhere and hopefully it’ll come into force quite soon.

Grantly: I don’t have very little to add because Darius is dealing with this in real time as recently as last week, I think but I do want to say that marine protected areas are, an important part of marine conservation and potentially fisheries management, but we’ll never be satisfied with just protecting parts of the ocean. If the rest is, unmanaged or poorly managed. And so we, I think the RFMOs are going to always play a very important role here. They’re going to be managing activity and 70 or 80 or 90 percent of the ocean. And we need sustainable management outside the boundaries of those protected areas just as much, or even more than we need the protected areas themselves. So I think there’s going to always be a role to play there and designing carefully planned MPAs will be part of that role of even the RFOs.

Darius: To add one more little thing, just to say that most RFMOs do have area based management and tools already in place in the high seas, so it’s a question of, it might well be looking at what we already have and how we enforce that and how that can be used again, in cooperation with others.

Mike: I did have one small add on to this before we move on to our final question Darius. There is a clause in the BBNJ that, the, do not undermine clause that caused quite a stir and Elizabeth Mendenhall was speaking to us earlier about that basically, the gist of it, as I understand it, is that even if a marine protected area is established no one can really tell what these international bodies can do they, they can continue exploiting the marine protected area as they please, there’s no oversight. Can you comment on that? Do you have any thoughts on that you want journalists to know?

Darius: It’s quite a legal question. But yes, no, not undermining has been there in the negotiations right from the beginning. I think it’s reflecting the fact that the BBNJ is not an overarching instrument above other instruments within the UN Law of the Sea. So yes, that not undermining thing has been a very serious issue all the way through to get agreement. So I think the best way of understanding as a journalist would be that the BBNJ conference of parties cannot just close and maybe, Grantly might disagree with me, my understanding is that the conference of parties can’t just go ahead and delineate an area in the high seas and go, we’re closing this to fishing because we and others would see that as undermining our management competence. But I don’t think it ever had to be like that. What it would be that you’d have a negotiation within the conference of parties of BBNJ taking into account what the RFMOs are planning to do there, setting up the objectives for an area and then managing them accordingly. But yes, I think there is a definitely an understanding for those with, from the fisheries side, that, closing an area to fisheries without the involvement of a, of an RFMO would be undermining it.

Mike: All right we, have time for 1 more question. I believe so. I am going to go to our last question, which I think is a really important one. So Ryan Orgera of accountability.fish has stated that because the leaders of nations give priority to the interest of their fishing industries in RFMO meetings, rather than that of their citizens, it leaves citizens out of the decision making process. So what is a way that citizens could be more directly involved in the decision making process? How would that be implemented? And I think Darius, I have you answering this one. .

Darius: Yeah, it’s interesting this proposal. I don’t really agree with the argument. Citizens are represented by their government. So I think all my parties would say, they are representing the interests of their citizens, whether it’s for cheap food, employment, food security, a good environment, biodiversity. It’s the job of the governments to reflect the balance of these priorities that their citizens have directed them to do. Obviously NGOs, whether they’re industry NGOs or conservation NGOs, will say that their perspective is the most important one.

And that’s what they should be doing, representing the interests of their, constituency. But it’s down to governments ultimately to decide on behalf of their, represent their citizens, their electorate or whatever in these views. So I think that’s my basic point, but if you’re talking about people being directly involved, if you open all the RFMO meetings to YouTube or whatever, I doubt if many ordinary citizens that you might call them would be watching apart from those, the same interested people, the NGOs on conservation, the NGOs on industry, a few others, so it comes down to me, what are we talking about when we say citizens, as opposed, which is different from the governments that represent those citizens? That’ll be controversial, maybe.

Grantly: Yeah, no, I think that’s fair. And it is true that everything you said was true. And in fact, the reason that these groups these RFMOs have a process for accrediting observers is so that some portion of the citizenry can, join the meeting without having to be part of their national delegation. And that’s exactly what Pew does at 10 RFMOs around the world. But, given the topic of the day is how to cover an RFMO I think that media/journalists have a very important role here to play as well. And, broadcasting the business of an RFMO to a broader group. And maybe I shouldn’t have said earlier that there’s not a lot of that happening, or maybe what I mean is not enough. I, we could always have more and regionally where fisheries are life in the Pacific islands, for example, fisheries are maybe the number one part of their GDP. There’s pretty good media coverage. But, we have to remember that the European Union has a global fleet. Japan has a global fleet. The U. S. has a global fleet, and we need journalists in those places covering the activities of the fleets flying their flags. Even when they’re far away. The European journalists do a great job of covering ICAT meetings and NEAFC meetings, because those are right in their backyard. Maybe they’re doing a little bit less of the covering of things that, where their fleets are operating on the other side of the world. And, I also want to say, since we’re basically out of time, that that Mongabay does an excellent job covering RFMOs and, and, I wrote down some reporters that I won’t name now, but there are some folks that are really committing to this right now. And it’s wonderful. And so hopefully there will be more of that. Thank you.

Mike: I did want to reserve like 30 seconds for resources that journalists should check out. One is accountability.fish that I recommend people take a look at. But panelists, are there any other resources that you want journalists to, to tap into and use?

Malavika: I, was going to say actually that the RFMOs themselves are pretty great resources. Just I know that it requires some amount of translation and there’s a lot of information, but I’m actually one of the first stories I did on an RFMO I relied on a ton of data that was present on the IOTC’s own website. There’s a lot of reports. There’s a lot of data on a multitude of things. The other thing is, yes I, also rely on global fisheries watch, which is another great resource. And actually, and human beings are really your best friends in some ways. I found that the best understanding I’ve have of all the data that’s being dumped on my head about the fisheries is basically people like, folks from the NGOs, et cetera, and scientists in IOTC who know, what science is not being translated into policy action, there are great resources, people in delegations who’s, who are either disgruntled or very happy with what’s going on. Those are great resources. I think it’s good to understand the IOTC has many moving parts and it’s, you can also individually reach out to people and get, great information. So

Darius: Yeah, I’ll second that. I think definitely when I talk to journalists, I often find that they’ve talked to delegations, they’ve talked to various people. So that’s the best way of getting clued up. And then, yeah, as I say, the journalists have to make their own mind up about where the truth is amongst all those different perspectives.

Grantly: And if I could just quickly say that while obviously I’m biased. At Pew, we try to produce a lot of technical documents in addition to our advocacy documents. And so I hope that folks will visit the Pew website and then to other efforts that I’m personally involved with, I should say for transparency include harveststrategies.org, which talks a little bit about how RFMOs are managing their fisheries. And then the FAO’s Common Oceans Project which talks about RFMOs all around the world. And as a place for resources as well.

Darius: Yeah, and that’s true also the FAO, the regional secretariat network, RSN on the FAO also has a lot of information on all the individual RFMOs. So you can pick the one you wanna investigate more.

Mike: Alright everyone that was a lot to cover, but we are definitely now out of time. I just wanna say thank you to our panel. For joining and, giving such great information and distilling all of this for our audience. We really do appreciate it.

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