Title:
An International Treaty Targets Fishing Abuses
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Some pirates catch fish instead of ships. The
problem is known as illegal, unreported and
unregulated fishing. Such fishing harms the
productivity of fisheries, and hurts developing
countries especially. The fish pirates can easily
land in ports that are not well controlled. Then
they sell their catch at prices too low for the
local fishing industry to compete. The catch may
enter international markets, yet rob communities of
needed food and raise the risk of fishery collapse.
In November, the governing conference of the United
Nations Food and Agriculture Organization approved a
new treaty. The agreement, once it takes effect,
will be the first under international law to target
this problem. It has a long name: the Agreement on
Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate
Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing. The
F.A.O. says that by signing the treaty, governments
promise to take steps to guard their ports against
ships involved in such fishing.
The behavior of a fishing boat is mainly the
responsibility of the nation whose flag it flies.
The new treaty is directed at countries where
fishing ships enter port. The aim is to get the
countries to identify, report and deny entry to
offending vessels.
To land, foreign fishing ships will have to request
permission from ports that are able to inspect them.
And before they arrive, they will have to send
information on their activities and the fish they
are carrying. If a ship is denied entry, other ports
will be told. And the nation whose flag it is
sailing under must take action.
The agreement will take effect once twenty-five
countries have ratified it into law after signing
it. Eleven members of the Food and Agriculture
Organization immediately signed the treaty. They
included Angola, Brazil, Chile, the European Union,
Indonesia and Iceland. The others were Norway,
Samoa, Sierra Leone, the United States and Uruguay.
Activists with the Pew Environment Group say
countries should use the measures even before the
treaty takes effect. The group notes that a past
fishing treaty took almost ten years to come into
force. But the director of international law
programs at Southern Illinois University is more
hopeful. Cindy Buys thinks the treaty might take
effect in only about a year. But she points out that
the success of the treaty depends on the ability of
nations to enforce it.
And that's the VOA Special English Agriculture
Report.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
