Tempting as it is to leverage markets to drive fisheries improvement, doing so is not a panacea for improving fisheries globally. Fisheries market interventions in general – and increases in fish value, specifically – can produce unintended social, economic, and environmental consequences. These may include increased fishing effort, lost access to fish for food for the poor and displacement of women and other marginalized people.

In , the highly-publicised collapse of a major Canadian cod stock focused global attention on the urgent need to stop overfishing – and better manage our fisheries. Similar declines in fish stocks have played out across major fisheries globally in the last half-century where abundance data is available: in Argentina, Canada, Chile, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, Peru, South Africa and the United States, and on the high seas, leading to the implementation of catch and effort restrictions.

One of the key challenges faced by the WTO is negotiating “special and differential treatment” for developing and least developed countries (LDC). Special and differential treatments are an important component of all WTO agreements as they support developing countries and LDCs with capacity-building and ensure that the required technical support to enable the full implementation of WTO agreements is available.

Hoyt Peckham is leading the development of WCS’ new global Small-scale Fisheries program. Prior to this, Hoyt founded and led the The SmartFish Group to incentivize more responsible fishing across Mexico and beyond. He holds a BA in biology and English from Bowdoin College, a doctorate in evolutionary ecology from the University of California at Santa Cruz, and was awarded a Pew Marine Conservation Fellowship. Hoyt has experience as a captain, diver, fisher, ecologist, and serial entrepreneur working in and on fisheries in Latin America, Polynesia, the Caribbean, NW Atlantic, SE Asia and Japan, and his specialties include responsible seafood, social enterprise, and transparency and equity in value chains.

David Kroodsma leads Global Fishing Watch’s Research Program, which is a collaboration between Global Fishing Watch and a network of over research institutions. He is responsible for leading and facilitating new research projects, and he works with the GFW engineering team to develop new technologies. David has over a decade and a half of experience working with NGOs and researchers to address global environmental challenges. He has a B.S. in physics and an M.S. in earth systems science from Stanford University.