A/RES/71/123
Sustainable fisheries, including through the 1995 Agreement for the Implementation of the
Provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982
relating to the Conservation and Management of Straddling Fish Stocks
and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks, and related instruments
12. Calls upon all States, directly or through regional fisheries management
organizations and arrangements, to apply stock-specific target and limit
precautionary reference points, which for target reference points are intended to
meet management objectives, as described in annex II to the Agreement and in the
Code, to ensure that populations of harvested stocks and, where necessary,
associated or dependent species, are maintained at or restored to s ustainable levels,
and to use these reference points for triggering conservation and management
action;
13. Encourages States, directly or through regional fisheries management
organizations and arrangements, to establish and implement rebuilding and reco very
strategies and plans where a stock is identified as being overfished, which should
include time frames and probabilities of recovery aimed at bringing the stock back
at least to levels that can produce the maximum sustainable yield, and guided by
scientific assessment and subjected to periodic evaluation of progress;
14. Also encourages States to apply the precautionary approach and
ecosystem approaches in adopting and implementing conservation and management
measures addressing, inter alia, by-catch, pollution and overfishing, and protecting
habitats of specific concern, taking into account existing guidelines developed by
the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations;
15. Further encourages States to enhance or develop observer programmes,
individually or through regional fisheries management organizations or
arrangements, in order to improve data collection on, inter alia, target and by -catch
species, which could also assist monitoring, control and surveillance tools, and to
take into account standards, forms of cooperation and other existing structures for
such programmes as described in article 25 of the Agreement and article 5 of the
Code;
16. Calls upon in this regard States, individually in line with their national
legislation or through regional fisheries management organizations or arrangements,
to take steps as appropriate to ensure the safety of observers;
17. Encourages States to implement, individually and through regional
fisheries management organizations and arrangements, accurate, complete, reliable
and effective data collection and reporting of required data on catches, including by catch and discards, reviewing and validating the data, and providing catch
information in support of scientific stock assessment and ecosyst em approaches to
fisheries management;
18. Calls upon States and regional fisheries management organizations and
arrangements to collect and, where appropriate, report to the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations required catch and effort data, and fisheryrelated information, in a complete, accurate and timely way, including for straddling
fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks within and beyond areas under national
jurisdiction, discrete high seas fish stocks, and by-catch and discards; and, where
they do not exist, to establish processes to strengthen data collection and reporting
by members of regional fisheries management organizations and arrangements,
including through regular reviews of member compliance with such obligations ,
and, when such obligations are not met, require the member concerned to rectify the
problem, including through the preparation of plans of action with timelines;
19. Invites States and regional fisheries management organizations and
arrangements to cooperate with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
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