ROME– In a bid to shed new light on the shadowy world of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, a FAO Technical Consultation has agreed to begin developing the Global Record of Fishing Vessels, Refrigerated Transport Vessels and Supply Vessels, FAO announced today.

The recommendations will be presented to the January 2011 meeting of FAO’s Committee on Fisheries for approval.

Unregulated fishing remains one of the greatest threats to sustainable fisheries and the millions of people whose livelihoods depend on them.

While no exact figures are known, it is widely accepted that the scale of illegal fishing is huge - one recent study estimated that it could be worth an estimated $10-23 billion dollars annually.

“One of the greatest obstacles faced by regional fishery authorities is a lack of access to even basic information on fishing vessel identification, ownership, control and activity”, reports FAO.

“This provides easy passage for the criminals backing illegal fishing because their vessels can move about at will, change flag and identity, and vary the owner and operator details so that legitimate authorities find it virtually impossible to track them.”

Today FAO unveiled their plans to create a Global Record, “a single web-based portal through which information such as vessel identification, capacity, history, ownership and activity can be easily accessed.”

FAO have designed this model to combat the current lack of global transparency with fishing vessels but they also anticipate that this portal will assist in the management of safety at sea as well as improving the health and welfare of fishing crews.

The recommendations will be presented to the January 2011 meeting of FAO’s Committee on Fisheries for approval.