Ocean Sentry
(From afp.google.com) Rome – Sixty-nine countries have adopted guidelines aimed at protecting deep-sea fish species and habitats outside national waters that are at risk from overfishing, a UN body said Wednesday.
According to the FAO (UN Food and Agriculture Organisation), the guidelines, which follow two years of preparation and negotiations, were needed in part because many deep-water fish species grow slowly, reach sexual maturity late and may not always reproduce every year.
“As a result, they have low resilience to intensive fishing, and recovery from overfishing can take generations,” it said in a statement.
