Minister Wilkinson talks about marine pollution and unregulated fishing

Transcript

Hello. I’m Jonathan Wilkinson. I’m Canada’s minister of Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard, and I’m in beautiful Halifax for the G7 Meeting of Ministers.

At this G7 Meeting of Ministers, we’re talking about oceans, the state of the oceans, the importance of oceans for the global economy.
And we’re going to be talking about ocean plastics.

All kinds of ocean plastics, but specifically ghost gear which relates to fishing gear that is lost every year, which contributes about half by weight of all the plastics that are lost in the ocean.

And secondly about unregulated, illegal international fishing, which is a huge problem from a sustainability perspective in terms of the fisheries around the world.

We’re going to be talking to our G7 counterparts – myself and Minister Catherine McKenna – about how we actually address these issues on a basis of all the G7 countries and how we show international leadership to ensure that, around the world, we’re addressing these critical problems.

Such that we can ensure a sustainable ocean economy going forward.