World Wide Funds for Nature-Pakistan (WWF-P) in collaboration with WWF's Smart Fishing Initiative (SFI) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture (MoFA), Government of Maldives, through its Marine Research Centre (MRC) to support Maldives in their efforts to provide sustainable management of tuna fish in the Indian Ocean during the next three years.
According to a WWF-P's spokesperson here on Thursday, the purpose of this agreement is to mutually extend technical and institutional support for the development and conservation of Maldives' marine resources and will focus on the development of sustainable management practices for skipjack and yellow fin tuna in the Maldives.
The MoU also aims to build and strengthen the collaboration between both organisations, and to share scientific expertise. Both parties will also develop and participate in Fisheries Improvement Projects (FIP) and address global issues such as climate change and its effect on fisheries. MRC has agreed to provide facilities for the collection of information about oceanographic parameters through use of scientific equipment available with it and access to available data. It will also assist in research on fisheries resources and help to implement rights based management (RBM) system for better marine resource management.
WWF will provide technical expertise for capacity building and training exercises in areas including fish stock assessment, aquaculture practices, education and awareness and other related scientific studies. In addition to this the organisation will provide advocacy and voice the opinions of Indian Ocean Coastal States for sound management and conservation of tuna and tuna like species.