If you have ever eaten a can of tuna, you have probably interacted with a Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO). You’ve also probably never heard of one, nor had any idea of how they operate.
Until 2015, I had no idea either.
I was an environmentalist and geographer engaging in my doctoral research on ocean conservation when I discovered that RFMOs were this dark and murky level of global governance where citizens and conservationists had next to zero influence.
I moved on from this research, but the problem of RFMOs and their lack of accountability stuck with me. This year, I’ve been given the opportunity to help launch a movement to address the problems of RFMO misgovernance.
RFMOs didn’t start out as a problem. They started out as a way to address a problem — how to take care of critical fisheries in international waters.
Cooperating nations created RFMOs in the latter half of the 20th century, to manage various commercially-important fisheries like skipjack and bluefin tuna.
But like many international bodies, RFMOs lack teeth and are famously bad at holding their members accountable for their adherence to decisions they adopt.
The rationale for their existence is to ensure conditions conducive to the long-term success of the fish and the fisheries they manage. However, more often than they ought to, they choose short-term gain for certain special interests over long-term sustainability for all.
In the RFMO world, there is no requirement that members decide in favor of scientific advice when pitted against short-term advantages for the best-connected stakeholders.
If science shows a fish stock under significant pressure and suggests a reduction in catch, nations can, and often do, ignore this advice.
Indeed, the preferred terminology, scientific advice, underscores that science is advisory and not binding when it comes to RFMO decision-making. Furthermore, the lack of scientific data is often treated with confident indifference. Deals unfold in the backrooms and shadows, out of the plain view of citizen and environmental advocates.
Science is advisory and not binding when it comes to RFMO decision-making.
The makeup of RFMOs might surprise you as well. Countries bordering the region of the oceanic geography in question are often members, but other players like China and the European Union are members of all of the major tuna RFMOs because of the size of their distant water fleets.
RFMO decisions are largely made by consensus at the official sessions, but, frequently, closed-door meetings between a few nations (and their national industries) decide the result well in advance of their infrequent official meetings. Sometimes the decisions are made in hallway chats during the proceedings, via secret texts between members while the official conversations are underway, or in boardrooms where multinational fishing corporations decide how to access greater shares of disappearing resources.
Also, the practice of consensus decision-making means one nation, no matter how small or undemocratic, can derail almost anything. Any one nation can, without any specific reason or justification, refuse to advance any measure, and in certain cases can agree to a measure but exempt itself from it.
In the end, marine wildlife, fish, as a commodity, are essentially free for the taking, damn the consequences. More like minerals than wildlife, it is largely sufficient to have the means to access these resources rather than the permission to do so. If you can afford do the fishing, the only cost is the cost of the fishing itself.
In the end, marine wildlife, fish, as a commodity, are essentially free for the taking, damn the consequences.
It is important to recall that when a nation is negotiating in the context of an RFMO, it is there to plead for its national interests. The paramount issue with this approach is that the industrial interest bleeds into the presented national interest — so that the loudest voice generally wins.
And even though no one nation has any greater claim to these fish, some have greater access. Biggest fleet wins.
When heads of delegation speak, they represent the voice of their nations — even if they aren’t actually representing the interests of their citizens.
For too long this lopsided power that member countries give their fishing industries, has left citizens out of this process, and other important market players, like retailers and wholesalers, out on the sidelines. The end result is a broken system with zero accountability and lousy outcomes for people and planet.
This is in part because of institutional arrogance and complacency; in the minds of many in the RFMO space, ‘if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it’. Moreover, market players like retailers, consumers, small fishermen and labor have not had anywhere near the organizational and financial commitment to securing their own best outcomes than the fishing fleet lobby.
Well, enough is enough. Accountability.Fish is here to bring accountability to this process and bring the citizen voice to these crucial conversations.
Accountability.Fish is here to bring accountability to this process and bring the citizen voice to these crucial conversations.
We’re building a movement to gain access to the RFMO process to support economic and environmental sustainability, drive accountability and transparency, and give communities, consumers and employees a fairer share of the pie.
It’s time for a new way of making sure fisheries management reflects what’s best for people and planet. Sign our pledge now.