As part of the issue area of environmental politics, fisheries become influenced by the developments in the realm of environmental politics.
This applies partly to the principles and regulatory approaches that are brought to bear on fisheries management, partly to the political processes relating to it. Fisheries are critically dependent upon the ocean environment. Various types of pollution as well as climate change may affect the fisheries.
When it comes to principles and regulatory approaches, the introduction of the precautionary approach as well as the current work on the application of an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management, are important examples of how concepts from the realm of the environment are introduced in a fisheries context. Also the increasing interest in marine protected areas is an example of this.
New stakeholders
As to the political processes, new arenas as well as new actors are gaining in prominence in fisheries. The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 as well as the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), addressed fisheries issues in great detail. Important environmental bodies like the cooperation under the 1992 Biodiversity Convention (CBD) and, at the regional level, the regime for the prevention of pollution of the marine Environment in Northeast Atlantic (OSPAR) as well as the North Sea Cooperation, have taken a keen interest in fisheries issues.
Part of this development is also the emergence of environmental NGOs as actors in fisheries politics. All major international environmental organizations have fisheries as an important part of their agenda.