Despite being ‘simply’ trade agreements, the CPTTP and the USMCA have started to drive advances in ocean sustainability. Member nations are required to use science-based management systems to prevent overfishing and overcapacity. They must implement port controls to combat illegal fishing and prohibit the provision of subsidies for vessels engaged in illegal fishing or that further threaten overfished stocks.

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Concerns about overfishing have existed for more than a century. But it is only relatively recently that intensive fisheries management – in some form or other – has become commonplace and effective. Today, most developed countries conduct scientific research on their fish stocks and ecosystems, restrict catch or fishing effort based on trends in stock health and have an enforcement system to make sure that regulations are obeyed. We consider these elements essential to modern fisheries management – but, with few exceptions, these elements were not in place years ago.

Today, Indigenous Australians remain vastly under-represented or excluded from the workforce. As of , less than half (. per cent) of working age Indigenous Australians were in some form of employment, compared to . per cent for non-Indigenous Australians. Worryingly, that gap only closed by . per cent during the decade to . Indigenous employment parity will only be achieved when Indigenous employees are present in the workforce in the same proportion as they are in the national population, at approximately . per cent. But ‘true’ parity extends beyond a single representation measure.

To address that first point, SmartFish NGO has partnered with Ocean Outcomes, Conservation International and Wilderness Markets to produce and pilot a Triple Impact Fisheries Evaluation Framework (Triple Impact Framework). In contrast to conventional, environmentally-focused fisheries improvement and certification processes, this approach reduces the risk of unintended consequences by tackling the ‘big three’ – social, financial and environmental – dimensions of fisheries.