40th Annual Meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission

OSPAR Executive Secretary Dominic Pattinson attended the 40th Annual Meeting of the North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) from 9-12 November 2021. He gave an opening statement highlighting those OSPAR Ministerial meeting deliverables of most relevance to NEAFC. This included the Cascais Declaration which gave a clear signal from OSPAR Ministers on the need to intensify efforts to cooperate with other competent organisations through the Collective Arrangement as the appropriate platform to address the management of human activities in areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Reflecting on this commitment the Executive Secretary very much hoped that NEAFC would be able to agree a date for the next Collective Arrangement. Issues could be discussed at such a meeting included assessing if measures to protect Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems were working, how OSPAR and NEAFC might work together to identify other effective conservation measures that deliver long-lasting conservation objectives and deciding on what to do with the advice delivered by ICES on deep-sea elasmobranchs.