MONTREAL — Ocean leaders at the World Ocean Summit warned last week that illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is draining the global economy of an estimated US$23.5 billion a year, and warned that weak monitoring and enforcement risk undermining recent international ocean agreements and targets to protect marine life.
Speakers at the summit — attended by more than 800 participants from nearly 60 countries, including government officials, scientists, investors, NGOs and industry representatives — argued the answer must move beyond pledges. “We know that today, still, roughly a third of the seafood on people’s plates comes from illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing,” said Niall O’Dea, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister at Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, noting this “drains about US$23.5bn from the legal economy every year.”
The scale of the enforcement challenge was underscored by Jelta Wong, Papua New Guinea’s Minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources, who told delegates it is “easier to pinpoint someone in Tehran and bomb them” than it is to monitor his country’s ocean space. Wong’s remark highlighted a central tension for Small Island Developing States, which often manage vast exclusive economic zones with limited surveillance capacity and resources.
Delegates pointed to new technologies — satellite monitoring, artificial intelligence and improved digital ocean modelling — as critical tools to catch up. Canada’s Ocean Supercluster used the summit to launch a Market Solutions Platform intended to accelerate commercialisation of ocean-based climate solutions and help bridge the gap between innovation and market deployment, a concrete step speakers said is needed to scale tools for monitoring, enforcement and sustainable industry.
The summit came as landmark agreements such as the High Seas Treaty (BBNJ) and the WTO Fisheries Subsidies Agreement begin to reshape ocean governance. But speakers cautioned those treaties will achieve little without funding, implementation plans and enforcement. “The science is already there,” said Surangel Whipps Jr, President of Palau. “Now it’s time for practical solutions and implementation. We can’t keep talking about it — we need to start working on it.”
Sessions over the two-day event covered a wide range of priorities — from blue security and disaster resilience for Pacific island states, to marine plastics, sustainable fisheries and scaling investment in a so-called blue industrial revolution. Delegates repeatedly returned to the target to protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030, warning that ambitious area-based conservation goals will fail unless countries invest in surveillance, prosecution and new financial mechanisms to support protected areas.
The summit’s tone — a call for concrete investment and operational follow-through — marks the latest development in international ocean diplomacy: agreements on paper are multiplying, but leaders and experts at Montreal demanded measurable action and financing plans to turn commitments into enforceable protection on the water.
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