Anyone ordering salmon in a European restaurant will easily recognise the similarity between salmone (Italian), salmão (Portuguese), saumon (French) or solomós (Greek), and may make the leap from the Yiddish lox to lachs (German), laks (Norwegian) or lax (Swedish). But identifying the same fish as yeoneo (Korean), som balig˘i (Turkish), sake masu-rui (Japanese) or losos (Croatian) calls for a fish glossary.

Fisheries may be an ancient economic activity, but nowadays they are at the forefront of globalisation. First, there is the trade itself: a blue hake caught off the coast of New Zealand by a Japanese vessel may be processed in China before being flown to a market in London or Paris.

With ocean stocks depleting, sustainable fisheries is now high on political agendas in OECD countries. Governments grappling with reform may find it reassuring to know that one of the OECD’s oldest committees, the Committee for Fisheries, is still going strong after 46 years at the helm. Indeed, the committee just held its 100th session on 29-31 October 2007.

The fisheries sector in OECD countries receives around $6.4 billion a year in transfers from governments. Around 38% of the transfers are provided for the management, research and enforcement of fisheries while 35% is directed to the provision of fisheries infrastructure, from harbour and landing facilities, to navigation services, and search and rescue support.

Fish piracy, or illegal fishing activity, depletes global fish stocks and undermines efforts to ensure continued, renewable stocks for the future. It also damages the economic and social welfare of those involved in legal fishing, and reduces incentives to play by the rules. But despite national and international efforts, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing continues to thrive worldwide.

Overfishing remains a major problem on our high seas. Stopping illegal and unrecorded fishing should help. The question is, how?

Further liberalisation of the world’s fish markets must first be led by effective management if the sea is to have plenty of fish for everyone. This has long been the mantra of the OECD Fisheries’ Committee and was confirmed at a press briefing by OECD fisheries experts in March to mark the launch of a new report, Liberalising Fisheries Markets: Scopes and Effects. The OECD maintains that both developed and developing countries stand to benefit from additional tariff and subsidy reductions, but cautions governments to ensure that their trade and fisheries management policies are mutually supportive.

One of the first deals struck in Johannesburg during the World Summit on Sustainable Development was an agreement to do something about the precarious state of the world’s fisheries and oceans. Hailed by negotiators as an important step toward saving fisheries resources from depletion, the agreement has nonetheless been heavily criticised, particularly by the non-governmental community.

Fishers have good cause to be unhappy these days. Their resource is dwindling for a start, and yet their prices are being forced lower by competition from alternative cheap food sources. Environmental pressures to go easy on the seas are intensifying, in particular to allow recovery of fish stocks and certain species of fish that are in danger of depletion. Add to the list the growing problem of marine pollution and even global warming, and there really seems to be no end to the plight of fishing communities.

In recent times it has been a case of “no news is good news” for world fisheries. Whenever fisheries make it into the press we are bombarded with tales of woe on the state of the world’s fish stocks, the aquatic ecosystem and fishing communities. Fisheries are increasingly portrayed as a sector that is facing crisis in environmental, economic and social terms; a sustainable development problem child.