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PAPUA NEW GUINEA:

Renagi R. Lohia spoke exclusively on the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States and Conference on Straddling and Highly Migratory Fish Stocks. He called the Barbados Conference the first test for the international community in implementing the Rio agreements and appealed for a resumed PrepCom. He commended the efforts of UN agencies for the Conference. Papua New Guinea is tightly monitoring fishing licenses within its EEZ and is committed to achieving the objective of adopting conservation and management measures to protect living marine resources in the high seas. There is need for fisheries reform and ecologically sound conservation within EEZs and on the high seas. Options for a legally and politically binding outcome of the fisheries Conference include a global treaty, a protocol to UNCLOS, and/or regulations or norms of conduct implementing UNCLOS once it enters into force. What is needed is political will to accept, implement and be bound by agreements in the high seas regime.