Here’s a fact you may not know: 14 percent of all fish caught in the world are caught illegally. Illegal fishing is bad both for the legal seafood economy (not to be confused with the Legal Seafoods economy, based mainly on chowder), and for fish stocks (not the Wall Street kind) that are depleted by those that shouldn’t be fishing. But, good news is afoot (afin?) for fish, as the first global treaty against illegal fishing has been agreed upon.

91 countries are signing onto this United Nations treaty, including every one in the European Union, Brazil, the United States, Japan, and Russia. The AFP (via Seed Daily) reports that the treaty “will block ships involved in illegal fishing from entering signatory ports and thus help prevent the fish going to market, the UN said on Tuesday.”

The treaty is going through the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (sic, it’s the zany British spelling), so here’s what happens next:

The treaty will be examined by the FAO’s Council later this month, and go to the FAO Conference in November for formal adoption. It must then be approved by individual nations, and will come into effect shortly after 25 have done so.

It seems that if 91 nations have already agreed to this, the approval should be no problem. I have no more information to impart, so let’s just wrap this post up with something catchy.

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photo credit: olliethebastard’s flickr photostream/Creative Commons