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The 28th Session of the Committee on Fisheries (COFI) will be held at the Headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in Rome, Italy from 2-6 March 2009.

COFI, a subsidiary body of the FAO Council, was established in 1965 and meets biennially. COFI negotiates international agreements and non-binding instruments, such as the 1995 Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF) and the International Plan of Action for Reducing Incidental Catch of Seabirds in Longline Fisheries (IPOA-Seabirds) adopted in 1999.

Some of the issues to be discussed at the 2008 Session include:

· Management of deep sea fisheries in the high seas,

· Combating IUU (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated) fishing, including through a legally binding instrument on port State measures and the establishment of a global record of fishing vessels, and

· Climate change and fisheries.

It is expected that COFI-28 will also discuss the Report of the Expert Consultation on Best Practice Technical Guidelines for IPOA/NPOA-Seabirds, held in Bergen, Norway in September 2008 (click here for an earlier news item on this report).

At the opening of each COFI session, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, the flagship publication (http://www.fao.org/fishery/sofia/en) of the FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Department, is presented.

ACAP will be represented at COFI-28 by its Executive Secretary, Warren Papworth. He will also attend the Regional Fishery Body Secretariat's meeting which follows on from COFI.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, posted 19 February 2009