The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has published a global assessment on the impacts of COVID-19 from the perspective of RFMOs and RFAB.
The paper provides a summary of responses to questionnaires circulated to both RFMOs and RFABs and is designed to capture initial impacts and restrictions imposed by COVID-19 upon the management, production and supply of fisheries products arising from both capture fisheries and aquaculture. The objective is to provide a timely global overview and scale of the impacts from the perspective of the secretariats of RFMOs and RFABs, as well as collate suggestions for interventions that may inform and guide the development of mitigation measures.
RFMOs have the mandate to adopt legally binding conservation and management measures in relation to the exploitation of fisheries resources and associated activities within their respective convention areas. In particular, RFMOs also have an important role in contributing to Monitoring, Control and Surveillance (MCS) and combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing for many important fisheries exploiting shared stocks.
While this paper provides an initial assessment of the current situation, the situation is constantly evolving and therefore follow-up assessments both at regional and country level will be required to fully understand the impact that COVID-19 has had on global fisheries and aquaculture.
Link to the paper: http://www.fao.org/3/ca9279en/ca9279en.pdf