Seabirds make the agenda at U.N. Fisheries Meeting

The plight of the world’s seabirds was a key agenda item at the week-long meeting of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Committee on Fisheries, ending in Rome today. At the meeting, BirdLife - with backing from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the USA – secured the Committee’s support for the development of ‘best-practice guidelines’ for National Plans of Action to help reduce seabird bycatch. “Seabirds, particularly albatrosses, are facing immense threats, more so than any other group of birds in the world,” said Dr Ben Sullivan, BirdLife International’s Global Seabird Programme Coordinator. “It’s a genuinely good result that the world’s fishing nations have recognised the importance of developing best practices to assist them in reducing the impact of their fisheries on seabirds.” Full story at