1 June 2017 – A new agreement aimed at stopping rogue fishing practices represents the capstone of years of diplomatic effort to combat the scourge of illegal fishing, according to the United Nations food agency.

The Agreement on Port State Measures (PSMA) to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing, gives the world “all the instruments necessary to achieve our goal,” said José Graziano da Silva, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in a press statement.

Mr. Graziano da Silva spoke at the first Meeting of the Parties, hosted by the Government of Norway to hammer out details regarding the treaty’s implementation, such as defining the responsibilities of States, regional fisheries management organizations and other international bodies, including FAO.

Soon to have 48 parties – counting all 28 European Union members, with Japan and Montenegro about to join depositing their instruments of adhesion – Mr. Graziano da Silva expressed confidence that more countries would join in the near future, saying “this gives the one-year-old treaty added heft.”

The FAO-brokered treaty restricts port access to fishing vessels that fail to comply with a set of rules, including proof that they have proper operating licenses and transparent disclosure of the species and quantity of fish caught.

Years of IIU fishing, which has yielded up to 26 million tons, worth some $23 billion a year, represents a huge threat to all efforts to bolster sustainable fishing in the world’s oceans.

Parties to the PSMA currently account for more than two-thirds of the global fish trade, according to FAO.

Mr. Graziano da Silva also noted a number of its additional benefits, such as promoting marine fisheries’ sustainability, improving livelihoods and food security of coastal communities and reducing illegal activities often linked to IUU fishing, namely trafficking, labour abuses and slavery.

The PSMA also represents a large contribution toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 14, which expressly calls for an end to IUU fishing by 2020.

Focus on implementation

Protocols under discussion include how to assure proper real-time exchange and information publication, as port States must signal eventual violations to a ship’s flag State in addition to regional authorities.

Further technical requirements of developing States will also be addressed. An ad hoc working group will meet later this week to make recommendations on establishing suitable funding mechanisms to make sure all members, including Small Island Developing States located amid some of the world’s most attractive fishing areas, can carry out their tasks. The PSMA treaty itself demands that members contribute to the capacity-building effort required to make the agreement work.

“This is a crucial moment,” Mr. Graziano da Silva said, noting that FAO itself has already committed $1.5 million of its own funds toward the effort.

1 June 2017 – Spread of the Zika virus disease and emerging threat of dengue and chikungunya were the result of weak mosquito control policies adopted nearly half a century ago, the United Nations health agency has said, vowing a renewed attack on global spread of such vector-borne diseases.

&#8220What we are seeing now looks more and more like a dramatic resurgence of the threat from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases,&#8221 Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the UN World Health Organization (WHO) told the sixty-ninth World Health Assembly, in May last year.

Starting in June 2016, the UN health agency began developing a comprehensive response to strategically guide countries and partners to urgently strengthen vector control as a fundamental approach to preventing disease and responding to outbreaks.

The unique fast-track process culminated this week with the adoption of the Global Vector Control Response 2017–2030 by the World Health Assembly (at its seventieth session).

The Response is also expected to go a long way in supporting implementation of approaches to vector control and achieve disease-specific national and global goals as well as for the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Of most direct relevance are Goals 3, 6 and 11 on ensuring health and well-being and clean water and sanitation, and on sustainable cities and communities.

Riding on wave of economic development

In particular, the Global Response calls for aggressive pursuit of promising new interventions such as new insecticides, spatial repellents and odour-baited traps, improved house screening, and developing common bacterium which can stop viruses from replicating inside mosquitoes.

At the same time, economic development can help bring solutions.

&#8220If people lived in houses that had solid floors and windows with screens or air conditioning, they wouldn’t need a bednet,&#8221 said Professor Thomas Scott from the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of California, who co-led a group of eminent scientists and public health experts in the development of the Response.

&#8220By improving people’s standard of living, we would significantly reduce these diseases,&#8221 he added.

At the same time, programmes targeting specific diseases have also yielded remarkable results.

One such example is Malaria: massive use of insecticide-treated bednets and use of residual insecticides inside houses has helped reduce the disease’s incidence in sub-Saharan Africa by 45 per cent over the past 15 years.

‘Disappearing’ public health entomologists

But that success has had a down side.

&#8220We’ve been so successful, in some ways, with our control that we reduced the number of public health entomologists &#8211 the people who can do this stuff well,&#8221 said Professor Steve Lindsay, a public health entomologist at Durham University in Britain. &#8220We’re a disappearing breed.&#8221

To counter this phenomenon, the Global Vector Control Response urges countries to invest in a vector-control workforce trained in public health entomology and empowered in health care responses.

&#8220We now need more nuanced control &#8211 not one-size-fits-all, but to tailor control to local conditions,&#8221 added Professor Lindsay, noting that under the new strategic approach, individual diseases such as Zika, dengue and chikungunya will no longer be considered as separate threats.

&#8220What this represents is not three different diseases, but one mosquito &#8211 Aedes aegypti,&#8221 said Professor Lindsay.

A change in mentality needed

Experts have also highlighted that while the task ahead will not be easy, the Global Response offers room for optimism.

&#8220Most of all, this document is a call for action&#8221, said Dr. Ana Carolina Silva Santelli, who co-led the eminent group with Professor Scott, presently the deputy director for epidemiology in the Brasilia office of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noting that integrating vector-control efforts across different diseases will require more equipment, people and resources.

But above all, a change in mentality is needed, she noted. &#8220The risk of inaction is greater […] given the growing number of emerging disease threats.&#8221