In the run up to the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3), where new international guidance on bottom trawling is expected to be considered, the International Coalition of Fisheries Associations (ICFA) has released a resolution asking policymakers to take a more nuanced view of the practice.
While bottom trawling is often thought of by some as inherently destructive to marine ecosystems, ICFA said, it is actually a vital element of a thriving and sustainable food system.
“Sustainable fishing must be recognized as part of the solution to global environmental and food challenges," ICFA Chair Ivan López Van de Veen said in a release announcing the organization’s new bottom-trawling resolution. “Trawling, when conducted responsibly, is indeed sustainable and an efficient method of fishing.”
The policy document points to trawling's important role in the global food system, noting that the practice produces one-quarter of the world’s wild-caught fish – the equivalent of 213 billion meals annually.
“Without the use of trawl gear and associated sustainable practices, global food security would be in greater peril,” López said.
The resolution highlights a number of other metrics of the practice’s sustainability, including that wild-caught seafood is carbon-friendly compared to other proteins, thus lowering the global food system’s reliance on proteins with heavier carbon footprints.
It argues that all fishing activities, even those that take place in vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs), can be fully sustainable when conducted in accordance with effective science-based management measures and points out that the 2022 UN Bottom Fishing Workshop acknowledged that significant progress had been made in the management of bottom-trawling fisheries and VMEs.
Finally, ICFA expressed its concern over the ways in which illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities were undermining global efforts toward sustainability. IUU not only poses a threat to the sustainability of all fishery resources and ecosystems but to global food security and labor justice in fishing communities, the organization said.
“With 82 percent of global wild-capture fish volume already coming from sustainable sources, the fishing sector is not the problem; it’s a partner in progress,” López said.
As he prepares to attend the UN Ocean Conference, López said that ICFA would like to see policymakers commit to effective fisheries management, a style of management which balances the health of the ocean ecosystem with the needs of the seafood industry, and recognize the role seafood plays in global food security.
A thriving global seafood industry, the organization said, has the opportunity to advance UN Sustainable Development Goals beyond just Goal 14 (Life Below Water), including Goal 1, which aims to eliminate poverty globally.
