New Iceland-FAO partnership focuses on fisheries and Blue Growth

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Iceland agreed to work closely together to facilitate the design and implementation of programmes supporting the long-term conservation of living marine ecosystems and to unlock the potential of the world’s marine and freshwater ecosystems.

The partnership is geared to provide financial and technical support to ongoing institutions and initiatives including the Port State Measures Agreement and to reduce the quantity of discarded fishing gear in the world’s oceans. Other areas slated for support under the agreement are land restoration, gender issues and FAO’s broader “Blue Growth” activities.

The three-year agreement lasts through 2022, the International Year of Artisanal Fisheries and Aquaculture.

“Fisheries, the blue economy, and healthy oceans are key areas for Iceland and for our development cooperation strategy, so we see this as a good way to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals,” said Marie Erla Marelsdottir, Director for Development at Iceland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, who signed the memorandum.

FAO has a long and successful history of cooperation with Iceland, a country with a large exclusive economic zone (EEZ) spanning around 754,000 square kilometers in the North Atlantic Ocean, and considerable interests and expertise in fisheries affairs ranging from policy and regulatory issues to marketing and safety matters.

In terms of the new agreement, Iceland will provide financial support as well as in-kind assistance of a technical nature covering the broad spectrum of areas, and deploy experts to assist FAO in project identification, preparation, implementation, assessment and reviews as well as engage in capacity building exercises and desk studies.

The chief beneficiaries of the prospective collaboration will be the millions of people for whom oceans constitute a unique source of ecosystem services, biodiversity, food and livelihoods.

Also, Iceland is committed to helping FAO’s work on “ghost fishing gear” such as fishing nets that are abandoned, lost or discarded at sea and each year add around 640,000 tonnes of plastic to the amount already floating around in the oceans today.

Iceland and FAO further agreed that the partnership framework will focus and strengthen work on the Blue Economy, which seeks to maximize environmentally sustainable social and economic benefits in coastal areas.

Original source: FAO
Published on 21 March 2019