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Canada’s National Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (NPOA-IUU) outlines Canada’s specific plans to address the problem of illegal fishing on a national, regional, and international basis.
At the national level, the NPOA highlights actions and initiatives taken within domestic waters or in international waters close to Canada’s 200-nautical-mile limit to deter and eliminate IUU fishing. Specifically, it explains the Canadian legislative and regulatory framework to manage and protect fisheries resources and outlines potential action to be taken to prevent harmful fishing activities. It also elaborates Canada’s international commitments to protect and conserve fisheries resources around the world.
In addition to describing existing programs and policies in Canada, the NPOA identifies areas for action at the national level to ensure that gaps in legislation and policies will be remedied over the short term. These activities include the review and improvement of monitoring, control, and surveillance operations in Canadian waters; the implementation of international commitments and instruments; and a review of Canada’s fishing capacity.
At the regional and international level, the NPOA proposes remedial steps to overcome the gaps that exist in the governance tools and regimes that were designed to protect high seas fish stocks. For example, Canada will continue to press for the international adoption of measures to strengthen the institutional regimes of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs); the adoption of additional compliance mechanisms in RFMOs; and improvements to the collection and exchange of information through and between RFMOs.
A unique feature of Canada’s NPOA is the emphasis placed on reviewing and revising the plan over time as new initiatives to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing are developed and implemented at the national and international levels. To that end, Canada is committed to use the ‘Checklist of Recommended Actions’ identified in the International Plan of Action to Prevent, Deter, and Eliminate IUU Fishing (IPOA-IUU) Implementation Guide and to update the document at regular intervals or when significant new initiatives come to fruition.
Canada’s NPOA-IUU was developed in accordance with the principles and provisions of the IPOA-IUU. Although voluntary, many of the basic provisions of the IPOA-IUU exist in binding instruments, such as the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the 1995 United Nations Fish Agreement, and the FAO Compliance Agreement.
The full text of the NPOA-IUU, including a comparison of Canadian policy and practice to the provisions of the IPOA-IUU, can be found at
www.overfishing.gc.ca.
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