Asia, the World’s Aquatic Centre of Gravity

Future Stakes for 2030

Given the fact that the need to find a common approach to the planet’s resources is becoming a major concern and the focus of numerous planned discussions, it appears obvious that although fish and seafood, whether caught or farmed, can provide many solutions to the question of food security, commercial fishing and aquaculture present numerous difficulties in terms of quality control, respect for applicable regulations and the enforcement of quotas. In this regard, Greenpeace’s campaigns have for years been revealing illegal Japanese practices, most notably the country’s whaling, but this extremely spectacular phenomenon overshadows other similar but more discreet trends that combine to render marine resources a major issue of global attempts to find an equilibrium between protecting the environment and feeding the world. That is why the member states of the UN adopted a ‘2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development’ on the 25th of September 2015 along with a series of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This set of 17 ambitious goals and 169 targets are to guide the efforts of governments, international organisations, civil society and other institutions over the next 15 years, i.e. from 2016 to 2030. Given its ambition to become the centre of gravity in the world’s fisheries resources, and indeed in many other domains, the role Asia will play towards achieving the Agenda’s goals will be crucial.