Social sustainability of fishing is closely intertwined with its environmental sustainability, the Holy See said on Tuesday at a high-level event co-organized with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on the occasion of World Fisheries Day.
The day is observed annually on 21 November and offers an opportunity to acknowledge, on the one hand, the vital importance of the sea as a source of food for millions of people across the world and, on the other, the role and hardships of fishery workers.
For several years, the Holy See and the FAO have been addressing the working conditions in the fisheries sector together. This year’s event, held at the FAO headquarters in Rome, focused on the role of ports and how they can contribute to securing the social sustainability of the fishing sector.
Recalling the recent Apostolic Exhortation “Laudate Deum” in which Pope Francis again remarked that technological advances are “also capable of threatening the lives of many living beings and our own survival”, the Vatican Secretary noted that intensive industrial fishing is also a threat to the future livelihood of smaller fishers.
“Destructive fishing in the marine ecosystem takes advantage of the work of the fishers, who know better how important the care of the sea is for the future of their livelihood,” she said.
Hence the need “to counter the ‘arrogance of the strong’ that threatens the work of the honest as well as the marine biodiversity of the planet” and listen to the voices of the fishers.