A/RES/72/72
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
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;
17. 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;
18. 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;
19. 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;
20. Encourages States to implement, individually and through regional
fisheries management organizations and arrangements, accurate, complete, reliab le
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 ecosystem approaches to
fisheries management;
21. 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 fishery -related
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;
22. Invites States and regional fisheries management organizations and
arrangements to cooperate with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations in the implementation and further development of the Fisheries Resources
Monitoring System initiative;
23. Reaffirms paragraph 10 of its resolution 61/105 of 8 December 2006, and
calls upon States, including through regional fisheries management organizations or
arrangements, to urgently adopt and implement measures to fully implement the
International Plan of Action for the Conservation and Management of Sharks fo r
directed and non-directed shark fisheries, based on the best available scientific
information, through, inter alia, limits on catch or fishing effort, by requiring that
vessels flying their flag collect and regularly report data on shark catches, includi ng
species-specific data, discards and landings, undertaking, including through
international cooperation, comprehensive stock assessments of sharks, reducing shark
by-catch and by-catch mortality and, where scientific information is uncertain or
inadequate, not increasing fishing effort in directed shark fisheries and urgently
establishing science-based management measures to ensure the long-term
conservation, management and sustainable use of shark stocks and to prevent further
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