By Loretta B Manele
The upcoming “Honiara Summit 2025: Umi Tugeda Delivering on SDG 14:4 Achieving Sustainable Fisheries” will focus on a sustainable development goal based on three pillars.
Collin Beck, permanent secretary for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAET) stressed this during a press conference with the media at the Friendship Hall.
He said these three pillars are economic growth, social development and environment protection all interlinked.
Moreover, Beck stated that over time with our man-made crisis, we have overfished, extracted so much from the ocean.
He added that with the impact of climate change the ocean has gone warm, there is also sea level rise and fish have moved away from certain jurisdictions resulting in the shift of fishing grounds.
Henceforth, Beck highlighted that the summit is nearly like a technical and scientific gathering basically to measure where we are, what we need to do in terms of ensuring we restore depleting fish stocks in different parts of the world, learn from each other, share technology and to share knowledge in terms of doing that.
He emphasized that when it comes to the management of fisheries, we can also make an outreach to other parts of the world to share our experience in terms of how we manage fisheries from a scientific perspective.
Beck said a number of leaders will be attending the summit which begins on Monday 24th at the Friendship Hall.
The summit set for 24th to 27th February is organized by the Solomon Islands government in partnership with the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO), the Special Oceans Envoy of the UN Secretary General and Pacific Community (SPC).
It is an international conference on the Sustainable Development Goal 14.4 which is to conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
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