Shanghai Ocean University has signed an agreement with Fudan University, which is also located in Shanghai, to launch academic programs focused on distant-water fishing governance.
The programs seek to train what Shanghai Ocean terms “fishery diplomats” who can fill “a shortage of high-level professional talents” managing China’s distant-water fishing fleet.
The announcement comes after China recently ratified the Port States Measures Agreement, which aims to reduce illegal fishing, and has been taking measures to rein in distant-water fleets in alignment with NGO pressure.
The two universities launched the initiative in April, and the launch event was attended by some of the country’s top fisheries officials, among them Liu Xinzhong, who is the head of the Fisheries Administration bureau at the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
Xinzhong said he hoped to see Shanghai Ocean “deepen international cooperation and exchanges [to] enhance the international competitiveness … and promote the sustainable development of the offshore fishery.”
Also in attendance was Zhang Xianliang, the president of the China Distant-Water Fisheries Association, who similarly said amid “the intensification of international competition for fishery resources,” he hoped Shanghai Ocean University would “promote the development” of China’s distant-water fisheries.
Wan Rong, the president of Shanghai Ocean University, explained that the latest move to create the fishery diplomat programs is just one in a long line of efforts to “leapfrog development” of China’s distant-water fleet.
The university has also cooperated with the Chinese government to establish the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs' Distant-Water Fisheries Training Center, as well as the national Distant-Water Fisheries Data Center, Distant-Water Fisheries International Compliance Research Center, and Global Fisheries Resources Survey Center.
According to Rong, Shanghai Ocean University has also “led or participated in the development of more than 60 new global resources and new fishing grounds.”
