The meeting at UN headquarters brings together delegates from governments, the fishing industry and environmental groups to review a 1995 agreement for the conservation and management of highly migratory fish stocks.

In a report released last week, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) accused international high seas fishing organisations of failing to prevent over-fishing and its attendant "fish laundering".

The document, a study of the world's 16 Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), concluded that the RFMOs, some of which have been operating since the 1920s, "have generally failed to prevent over-exploitation of fish stocks" and have allowed marine eco-systems to decay.

Fish launderers use a strategy that is "very hard to trace back", according to Simon Cripps, head of the WWF's maritime programme. They discharge their catch in ports where controls are not too strict, he explains, and then reload it onto other ships sailing under other countries' flags.

The Food and Agriculture organization (FAO) estimates that about 25 percent of the stocks it monitors are overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion.

Roughly half of the stocks are fully exploited, producing catches close to their maximum yields, it said, adding that only 25 percent are underexploited or moderately exploited and could maybe produce more.

FAO also cited soon-to-be released analyses showing that in the high seas, about 30 percent of the stocks of highly migratory tuna and tuna-like species, more than 50 percent of highly migratory oceanic sharks and nearly two-thirds of straddling stocks and other high seas stocks are overexploited or depleted.

Speaking in his capacity as chair of the Pacific Islands Forum, Papua New Guinea's (PNG) UN Ambassador Robert Aisi stressed the need for the conference to address the issue of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing.

"No single issue has the potential for greater ongoing impact on our livelihoods than this one," he noted. "We must strengthen regulatory measures, extend coverage of regional organizations and improve our enforcement capabilities to fight IUU capabilities that gravely endanger the future of our fish resources.

Despite a voluntary code of conduct for responsible fisheries adopted by FAO members in 1995 and a 2001 action plan to address the problem, some fishers do not respect rules concerning fishing gear and fishing areas while others fail to report or misreport their catches.

Members of the Pacific Islands Forum include Australia, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Palau, PNG, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

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