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11 Introduction to the Coastal Fisheries Programme and its Strategic Plan This Strategic Plan maps out the direction of the Coastal Fisheries Programme (CFP) for the triennium 2003 to 2005. CFP works with and through Pacific Island countries and territories (PICTs) to help Pacific Islanders to assess, monitor, develop, sustain and manage domestic (coastal state-based) fisheries (particularly smaller-scale fisheries), and aquaculture.

This Strategic Plan for the Regional Maritime Programme (RMP) of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) follows on from RMP's Three year strategic plan 2003 to 2005. It builds on achievements of the previous plan period and sets out the direction of the Programme over the next five years (2006 to 2010).

At their 1999 meeting, Pacific Islands Forum Leaders endorsed a list of recommendations emerging from the Pacific Regional Follow-up Workshop on the Implementation of the Law of the Sea Convention, convened in Tonga in 1999. Although most of the recommendations could only be implemented by national governments, one of the recommendations — that a regional ocean policy be produced — was adopted as a regional level initiative. The Marine Sector Working Group (MSWG) of the Council of Regional Organisations in the Pacific (CROP) was tasked with developing a regional ocean policy. The draft policy produced by the MSWG was presented to official meetings and governing councils of the various CROP organisations, and was subsequently endorsed by the 33rd Pacific Islands Forum, in 2002. In doing so, Forum leaders recalled their 1995 decision urging members to become parties to the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at the earliest opportunity. Leaders called for follow-up action plans, both for the region and for individual countries

The meeting was held in response to a recommendation from member countries and territories at the second Heads of Fisheries meeting in July, 2001. The meeting agreed that it would be “timely to have a broadly based regional consultation or workshop on community-based management of Pacific Island coastal fisheries.” The deliberations and outputs of the policy meeting will become a fundamental part of the SPC Coastal Fisheries Programme’s strategic plan and thus directly shape the activities and outputs of the newly-formed Fisheries Management Section.

This booklet is a vehicle for sharing knowledge between the islands of the Pacific Community about the basic fishery management measures that have been used in different places for regulating particularly important or potentially vulnerable species. Regulations should not be transferred verbatim from one area to another unless their situations are known to be similar. This booklet is not intended to promote any particular management measure or approach, but indicates the range of measures that have been used. It also presents the legal and fishery management precedents that have been set in various countries. This information will be useful to Pacific Island governments that are developing or revising fisheries regulations.