Good day to all and welcome to our seminar. My name is Eudon Lem and I'm a Deputy Director in the Fisheries and Aquaculture Division of FIO. Today's webinar presents the main findings of the first component in a comprehensive study on fishing access arrangements from an economic angle with the objective to facilitate identification of opportunities to enhance trade in fisheries-related services, particularly for developing countries. And the report associated with this study will be published at the beginning of next year. The study focusing on fishing access arrangements involving coastal developing countries, including small island developing states, it aims to identify the main characteristics of these arrangements from a social economic perspective by mapping them to facilitate the understanding of their multiple dimensions. And the study was carried out by Professor Liam Campling who is together with us today together with a global team of fisheries experts. And the study presented today describes the commonalities but also differences among the various fishing access arrangements and with the regional focus considering local specificities and maps the most frequent arrangements used by the major distant water fishing states and distant water fleets. In the next phase we plan to develop and add new components focusing on supplementary aspects in order to provide a more comprehensive overview of such access arrangements. And it's our conviction that this study will allow countries to better understand the global situation of access arrangements and this can foster national development in activities that are complementary to the activities associated with fishing access arrangements in general. And such a study of course can also promote a more inclusive economic growth in coastal countries with positive results on income distribution and in reducing poverty and hunger. The study is also directly relevant for several of the targets under SDG 14 including SDG 14 7.1 on the contribution of fisheries to the GMP of SIDS and other developing states. Finally FAO is developing this study under the auspices of the Glowfish project a multi donor funded project focusing on sharing information on markets and trade and fisheries and agriculture products in order to foster the participation of countries in particular developing countries in global trade and markets. At the end of the event today the summary of the first component of the study will be available on the Glowfish website. With that I thank you and I now give the floor to the author of the study Professor Liam Camping. Liam please. Greetings everybody. I will try to share my screen and hopefully that works fine. So you should be able to see that okay. Yeah so can you see that okay just just let me know. Yeah thank you sorry. Okay so my name is Liam. I teach international business and development at Queen Mary University of London and I'm presenting this piece of work but it's very much a collaborative effort as you will see very soon. So this was a study that was commissioned to map access arrangements. Now as a lot of you probably are aware access arrangements are very often are quite unknown. For example in a personal anecdote when I was starting out my PhD researcher an old hand of fisheries research said to me that getting hold of access agreements was a little bit like getting hold of the holy grail and you know it genuinely is very difficult to study this area so I would like to thank FAO for asking me and the team of people that we work with to do this work but of course it's very incomplete and very partial so I thought it would be useful to start off by talking about the approach that we take with the work. The reason why I want to talk about this is to be completely transparent but also to give you an indication of the kind of the different types of emphases that we make or take in analyzing the different kind of country and regional case studies and I'll explain that a little bit more in a moment. So to start off with we focused very much on the best study. This was a quite a small piece of work, it ended up being quite long. We used a sequence of case studies both of countries and regions by major distant water fishing fleets and by major access recipients so in other words resource holding firms, resource holding states and a lot of this work drew from our individual research and our individual kind of experience and interviewing and kind of country-based work. So we try to capitalize on the very uneven access to information which I set out at the outset by really trying to highlight different aspects of access in the various cases and I'll highlight some of those in a minute. But to set up the work myself and the kind of legal author Elizabeth Hades developed a sequence of kind of key conceptual tools by which to help guide the team in their analysis and what we wanted to do was get beyond the kind of the classic understanding of access as being a government-to-government relation as is kind of typical with the EU, the types of access agreements and to look at the broader kind of the entire range of different types of access which very often involve firms at the center. So we wanted this to be not a state-centered analysis but to think about the economic key economic agency of companies. Now in this work we are focusing exclusively on distant water access arrangements and I'll come into how we're thinking about that in a moment. So before I come to that just a quick note on the co-authors. So I said it was a collaborative piece of work and here you can see the list of people that contributed to the work and the various areas by which they kind of specialized in the report itself. It's quite a long report. It dives into some considerable detail in some cases but as a whole overall the intention is to provide a snapshot, a comparative snapshot to allow readers to get a real sense of the complexity and diversity of forms of access arrangements in the world. So here you can see a figure drawn by Dan Hetherington and what this tries to do is to give a sense of the very varied kind of concerns or interests that coastal states have in relation to access arrangements. Now access arrangements can be reciprocal so for example the classic example would be something like the EU Norway type of arrangement or they can be non-reciprocal and the focus here is really on the non-reciprocal arrangements what the European Union calls the southern arrangements and by that they mean the global south and really the focus here is on how developing developed country but not only also developing country governments and or firms seek and gain access to very mostly developing country resources in their exclusive economic zones and we categorize this in two different general ways. The first is the what we call the classic cash for access agreements and these are as I mentioned at the outset kind of typified by the European Union kind of example or government to government but there are also less well understood relationships here such as industry association to government and as we'll see Japan is a key example there of that model or companies of government an entirely private company maintains an access agreement with a coastal state. Now these are very much cash for access agreements very often there is another component included here for example in overseas development assistance in the government or technical support sometimes in the industry association to government but they're quite straightforward in the scheme of things. The other major type is what we call the second generation kind of access arrangements and what we mean by this is a coastal state giving discounts in in in return discounts in discounted access to the resource in return for the domestication of boats and or onshore investments so for example coastal state will say well if you bring your boats and register them domestically then we'll give you a discounted access fee and why do they do that well because one of the major benefits of having a major foreign operator in an economy is the economic activity that's generated by that fleet in the port and the port services for example as you can see in the image here or kind of quite well known I suppose is the return of onshore investment very often to generate onshore employment in countries that very often have extremely high levels of unemployment or underemployment so the the developmental component of of second generation access is very very much at the heart of the motivations of coastal states. So the findings now this will be very much a snapshot overview of a series of case studies and so bear with me and hopefully you'll read the report and go into the detail there. The report's broken down into two sections the first section sets out the resource seekers and the second section sets out the resource holders now of course there are many more resource seekers and resource holders than we were able to cover in this report so as a result it will inevitably be partial but we do hope we do hope that we have captured some of the major ones at least and so we start off the report by looking at Japan why because it's historically well the most important distant waterfishing nation from before World War II and it sets the global scene so it's kind of post-World War II arrangements were driven by strong industry associations negotiating with coastal states and you know of course this was primarily kicked off in the 1970s but Japan has had access has always played a major role in its international relations and in many ways it still does today partly through the role of the coupled overseas development assistance connecting resource holding states with the Japanese with Japan. Another major example which everyone knows quite a lot about is the EU and why they know about it well because the subsidies are public they're scrutinized they're transparent in a network of sustainable fisheries partnership agreements but one of the things we highlight in the report is the rise of alternative forms of access by private entities who are based in the EU and that includes things like chartering arrangements and other forms of second generation access. The EU case is important especially in Africa both north and sub-Saharan because it's a very strong relationship to trade relations and market access so there's a kind of a deep embedded relationship of raw material supply from the EU fleet to domestic processes in many sub-Saharan African and African economies. As everybody knows China was emerged as a major maritime player and fisheries have been a key aspect of this maritime expansion and fisheries are not just about the fish catching the fish fisheries are also about the industrial activity on shore as is the case for many economies including historically Japan and the EU and by that I mean the procurement of volumes of raw material for domestic processing in China. China is a major user of second-generation access arrangements and there have been a number of studies that looked at the way that access has been supported by decoupled loans in other words loans that are not directly related to the access agreement but have some kind of ties. Taiwan is emerged in the 1970s as a raw material specialist so it really revolutionized global the distant water fishing kind of model by focusing on transshipment that approach and has a real global reach. As a result it's also a major flagger convenience operator. It uses vessel registries in lots of locations but like many of the countries here including China it's implemented a wide range of regulation to try and better control flagger convenience operators. South Korea was quite similar to Taiwan although it's reduced its geographical scope in recent years to primarily Russia and the western central Pacific. The big difference between South Korea and Taiwan is that South Korean access arrangements tend to be shaped by vertically integrated companies on the tables but both countries use industry associations to negotiate and they're very much of the first generation kind of approach. Now the USA has a multilateral access agreement so this is a government-to-government agreement in the western central Pacific and within that it uses has both kind of old fleet and its new fleet so its old fleet is boats owned and operated in the United States and its new fleet tends to be operators who have investments from overseas and tend to be more oriented to transshipment operations. Now as a whole the US tuner fleet has been in decline in recent years and so we would expect to see perhaps less significant access arrangements by this country and then finally we we talk about the Philippines why because it's another model. The Philippines uses fisheries very much as an industrial strategy again like the China case in order to capture raw material to bring it to major domestic processes and unlike some of the other entities mentioned here it has a sub-regional focus so it's primarily focused on the western central Pacific or solely I think. So moving to the resource holders so we look at West Africa one of the complexities of this coastal area is that there are multiple distant water fleets there but unfortunately there has been relatively limited cooperation now there is lots of potential for cooperation there are lots of institutional forms of cooperation but in terms of its operationalization that this is yet to bear fruit one of the other big problems in the West African case is historical conflicts with local fishes. Namibia was a key case that we focused in on because it had a strong success story of domestication so in other words foreign fleets engaging in second generation types of access but these have had very well known operational problems in recent years which have caused all kinds of political problems because of beliefs that there are nefarious practices ongoing or what were at least. In the western Indian Ocean this area from a personal perspective the tuna perspective is very much a eu sphere of influence and there are competing coastal states there have been some attempts to engage in forms of South-South cooperation there and they're ongoing but the coastal states there are also competing against each other for market access and raw materials to the EU market so as a result of this it sometimes impedes the forms of regional cooperation that we will see in a moment take place in other small island developing state contexts. We looked at Manamara's case study because it has had a long history of macro regional competition in Southeast Asia and a history also of illegal access to its waters and we saw that as being an important case study to include because it's a way of gaining access to resource that is illicit and so this is Manamara is not alone in this experience and so we do think this is something that should be highlighted in any analysis of how access works in practice. India was a great case study because it's always been much more oriented towards domestic development and domestic fleet development and so as a result of that there are a very powerful role of for example coastal regions including coastal small-scale fishes shapes the scope for distant water fleets in ways that is not the case in the other kind of examples highlighted here and then finally we talk about the Pacific islands and this is a great study of case study of South-South cooperation it shows the potential that coastal states can harness from access arrangements to maximize rent from distant water fishing fleets and the real kind of success story there has been the Vessel Day scheme for Perseid and that has significantly increased the rent available to the eight parties to the Nero agreement since around 2007 so what you can see here is a very wide range of different approaches to extracting the resource and it approaches to trying to govern access to that resource both in terms of capturing more revenue but also in terms of trying to generate more onshore employment or economic activity as a result of domestic interests and also as in the Pacific Islands case of sub-regional interests of working together so some reflections I think it's very important to recognize that access is a product of economic struggle of rent and profit and so by that we mean when a distant water fleet is trying to gain access to a resource in an AZ it is trying to do so at the most profitable basis that it can in that process it could be eating into the rent that could be captured by the coastal state and so as a result there is this always this economic struggle between these different agents in access arrangements but we also do know that it's often highly geopolitical and this can play a significant role in terms of a sub-regional characteristics of a fishery so for example the the EU's historical role in the western Indian Ocean and other more kind of contested areas of the marine borders and so on which we won't go into here. I think also what we hoped to highlight is that even though there can be calls for different types of best practice in relation to access arrangements they will always be highly context-specific so the case study of India contrasted for example with the case study of the Pacific Islands or West Africa are all such different contexts that they they shape the characteristics of access arrangements the firms involved the states involved both as resource seekers and as resource holders and so in a way each context is quite often unique but there are significant commonalities and one of the things that we find in this work is that contrary to much of the focus in the study of access over the last 20 odd years we really do need to be thinking about placing firms at the center as strategic agents as key players in shaping outcomes but also as kind of political agents very often trying to influence their home states very often punching well above their economic weight in their domestic context because of the political significance of the fishery to a sub-region in the UK for example or to a cultural kind of context so for example politically very often certain sub-regions of coastal areas have fisheries at their heart even if economically they're relatively insignificant. At the same time I think we should be thinking about firms as strategic agents in resource holding countries as well and resource holding countries are often very small with quite small state capabilities or relatively limited state capabilities which means that powerful multinationals can play a significant role in shaping the fisheries policies of particular states and I think it's important to be cognizant of that and why is it important to be cognizant of that because in many cases fisheries access revenue is a significant public asset and it's a public asset that can be a major contributor to all kinds of government spending within the country for example in education healthcare and so on and very often what we've seen in lots of countries is some controversy over discounting that is provided to distant water fleets as a result of second generation access and this discounting can of course be very successfully generate onshore employment which has a significant political social outcome but one thing we've found in this work is the need for countries to recognize exactly what is being discounted and what revenue is being forgotten as a result of that and I'll think I'll stop there. Thank you very much Liam thank you for that I see we have now more than 110 participants joining us and that is very very very good stimulating and we have the first one in the audience asking for the floor I see Iceland former ambassador of Iceland to FAO now back in Iceland good to see you Stefan you have the floor thank you Dr. Lem thank you Edvin and good to see FAO colleagues again even from a remote location and finally we have this presentation we've been waiting for about for a while but to begin with as a former ambassador I'd like to thank all of you on behalf of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Ministry for Fisheries in Iceland both to thanks to FAO and the authors of this report and especially the leader Liam Campling who did this very interesting presentation now. Now the government of Iceland decided to ask FAO to lead an independent study of the way in which fisheries contracts in diverse contexts take place and it was agreed to start with phase one of a potentially four phase study. Now the role of Iceland was to fund the first phase and agree to the terms of reference proposed by FAO Iceland did not have any input into the draft or final version of the study report it is the report of the other. Now we do however thank again FAO and the team behind the study for job well done and as we have already heard the report will be public. Now we also like to inform our partners that Iceland would like to continue with the project and bring the whole study to completion and just to inform our very big audience that one potentially promising outcome would be the launch of this whole project a launch of a voluntary guidance about best practice for fisheries contracts between parties but this is for downstream in the future but as of now I would just like to reiterate my thanks and hand over to the chair thanks. Thank you very much for your kind words and thank you for your support of your personal support and that of Iceland of course through the the process of developing this this project and this report and now I have the floor I leave the floor open Marianna can you please help me to see if who else has raised their hands has there been some indication earlier. There is one question I don't know if you would like to. Yes there are few in the in the question and answer especially the last one from Jung and Jung which is do you consider the role of associations in the analysis and not just on firms they're also very important players in the understanding of the of this participant so maybe Liam if you can address that so it's not just the behavior of the companies or the companies or the countries but also the associations and of course there are some associations or there are also associations of countries that are very important in the management of these arrangements. Liam please. Yes, I was trying to be very disciplined in having a 20 minute presentation of a 100 page report and so yes industry associations are absolutely central to multiple access arrangements so thanks for allowing me to highlight that in our definition of first generation access arrangements we set out three ones government to government one is industry association two government and the third was kind of private entity a company to government and the reason why we had that second one there is precisely because of the centrality of industry associations in particular for example in the case of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and others but those ones spring to mind as very important players in relation to this and the industry associations of course pool the multiple operators together and allow for reduced transaction costs but also better governance very often and so I think that there's an important role that the industry associations play there. Thank you and there is one question from Professor Trond Bjorndal and it's about the resource rents and Trond asks you mentioned resource rents have you looked at the kind of values that are involved in some of these arrangements or agreements and how they are shared between the parties or is that for the next phase? For this piece of work no we didn't but in my own work we have yes and I think there's a fundamental aspect that was kind of what I was trying to get at in the last slide on the distinction between rents and profits and I think that the way of course that the rent is recorded in the distant water fleets is as a profit and and so I think that's a long technical kind of conversation we could have there. I was also I think getting at the relative success of some coastal states in capturing a higher resource rent than other coastal states depending upon the opportunities that they have to cooperate and yeah we can talk about that for a long time but that would probably have to do to now because it wasn't within the scope of the piece of work. Very good, very good. There are also a couple of questions regarding nutritional values of well versus economic value which is sort of an interesting angle in looking at it. I guess it's whether the resource should be more challenged towards domestic markets for nutritional aspects of the domestic population or whether one should allow others to fish the resources etc and then of course gain financial income in order to compensate so I don't know if you looked at that or it's a more generic comment on trade in fish and fishery products. We didn't look at that in this study no but it is very important and I think that we need to think about what is lost and this is part of the opportunity cost kind of question and the distinction between for example food security, food sovereignty and other questions like the right to food so for example with the right to food we could be talking about the onshore employment that's generated through second generation access arrangement or we could be talking about food sovereignty policies being used to block distant water fishing fleets in order to ensure that there's more fish being caught and sold domestically and I think that that's a very wide range of possibilities there that very much depend upon the politics of that particular country but it's a really important crucial question I think. Then we have questions on two different aspects which are both very interesting and important one is on gender where the gender has been looked at and then the second one is if you could say something more about the vessel day scheme in the Pacific Islands that probably not everyone are familiar with so the gender dimension and also the vessel day scheme please. Yes so that's a great question on gender this piece of work did not take a gendered lens partly because we were trying to map the entirety of global fisheries access arrangements and as a result of that there are multiple lenses that we were not able to use but I do know and from the work of people working on fisheries and gender that gender plays a crucial role in as a lens to think about what the domestic benefits are of fisheries access arrangements and the different types of fisheries access arrangements so in some contexts you see highly feminized workforces processing non-shore kind of catch as a result of distant water fleets which has empowered women I'm thinking about the Fijian case here where in other cases you see quite different outcomes where essentially women are being super exploited by the relationship of the distant water fleet and other investors to that coastal state so I think that again the gendered lens would need to be context specific to think about how those outcomes play out but again it's a crucial consideration in thinking about access and fisheries trade in general much like the food security question before and on the VDS the vessel day scheme so what the pacific islands did and there was a kind of connected question about how how we can maximize the economic what was the quote was the question sorry how could we maximize the learning from the vessel day scheme in the pacific islands and potentially advance further so to try and answer that at the same time as explaining the vessel day scheme the image that I used at the end was from a paper of myself Elizabeth Havis compared directly the the WCWCPO the western central pacific EEZ with those of the western Indian ocean and the difficulty of south-south cooperation in a place like western Indian ocean is because of the much greater proportion of high seas in the total fishery which makes it much more difficult for the coastal states to effectively cooperate no arguably they could have cooperated better but in the pacific islands case the in the case of per se and tuna the fish literally swim through those EEZs and because of a long history of effective cooperation amongst those coastal states they have managed to adopt a kind of musketeers kind of approach of one for all for one which has resulted in an in captured I mean it's a public domain an increase in the capture of the resource rent from 60 million a year about 10 years ago to around 500 or 600 million a year now and so it's precisely about this contested nature of access that I think is crucial to understand it there's not just a technical resource rent there are processes of contestation I think need to be better recognised in thinking about access it's not just a flat relationship I have that kind of answers the point you mentioned your PhD and when you started out and the comment on transparency and access to information and there was a question here from Alexander Rodriguez in LDAC about transparency in general regarding access agreements and I don't know if you could say something about that the difficulties maybe you had in gaining access to other agreements and of course there are a number of initiatives now there's PT there are others that are aiming for more transparency in this in this field yeah I think that one of the the questions of course the EU has a very positive approach to its access arrangements and it makes them all public domain and the reason why it does that is because there is a significant subvention from EU taxpayers to that activity and so to not have put that in the public domain would be difficult from its own domestic kind of governance perspective and and so I think that from a coastal state perspective there is the risk that if all access arrangements are in the public domain then it can more easily suffer at the result of the hands of a well coordinated set of distant multi-fishing interests and so one of the key things that stopping coastal states from engaging in foreign transparency is precisely that risk like in any negotiation if the information as asymmetries are crucial as we all know and if the information is all public domain then there is the risk for coastal states that they will be out negotiated and they're already very often in a weak position anyway so I think that's one of the explanations for why transparency is not perhaps as what some people would like to see if that makes sense yeah there are a couple of more questions there's one regarding technology the use of technology and maybe in these arrangements including technology that is not the most labor intensive and then a second issue related to I guess controlled and enforcement whether you look at how effective these are in the the arrangement of fisheries agreements in in maintaining sustainability parameters that overfishing does not take place put it like that enforcement issues and and control okay I could trust on the technology the technology question it is also about firm size right and I think so I think that what we see and my personal perspective in a lot of these contexts is that larger corporate entities are able to capture more of the slice of the pie as they are in all industries and this isn't specific to fisheries at all and there's a lot of work that's been done for example by the World Bank in their most recent kind of World Development Report in 2020 and this is the same case in the same fisheries where you see large entities who are able to use their relative market power to capture gains from other entities in the value chain and this is an argument that I've been making with the colleague Elizabeth Havis for some years in relation to the tuna industry so I do think that firm size matters and kind of corporate strategy and corporate organization and I don't the role of technology in relative labor and capital and sensitivity of that I think is beyond the scope of the access agreements study and that's something that I have looked at in terms of the international division of labor in fisheries processing but I'll pass on that because it would take me away from focusing on access and I'm sorry the second question I didn't I didn't really get hold on which one the one on enforcement or how fisheries agreement could lead to overfishing of course if there are no controls or how this is monitored. Yes and well again that's very context specific I think that there are a very wide range of stronger and weaker types of access arrangements and historically of course in many contexts the access arrangements that were implemented were not just about capturing more revenue they were trying to ensure that the resources there for generations to come and what we have seen is in again to use the Pacific Island countries as a case study is that through their effective South-South cooperation they have also implemented a much wider range of sustainability criteria and that's understood in a broad sense than other coastal contexts and in doing so in the tuner lens they have again probably the most sustainable tuna fishery in the world and so access arrangements must always have sustainability at heart it's the foundation that access arrangements need to be built on if they're not built on that then you were talking about destroying you know essentially a global commons in the interest of short-term revenue gain and I think that's not in anyone's interests. Thank you then we have a couple of questions regarding the impact of this agreement on the domestic industry and one of them is from our old friend Mario Aguilar in of Mexico and he phrases it like this do access agreements contribute are they neutral or do they inhibit the development of domestic fishing fleets for the same species and other fisheries of course and that is also very very interesting and then of course there is a very sensitive question regarding the role of subsidies there and and how this is treated and whether there's methodology to look at at the portion of subsidies I guess within these these payments but so I think that access arrangements have to be understood in their specific contexts and so the the question there is one that it depends so if you're talking about a small island with very limited government revenue that's fiscally squeezed and it has a very significant fishery then the access arrangement can provide revenue whereas if you're talking about a country that has a very diversified economy and with lots of potential for domestic investors industrial investors to build their own fleets and to engage in that fishery then there is the risk that the access agreement could knock them out so I think that that has to be understood on a case by case basis on the question of access and subsidies I think one of the key things to understand there is that what I'm trying to encourage people to think beyond with this piece of work is the straight government to government access arrangement kind of logic that has shaped the international community's understanding of what access is for many years access is like most other forms of investment in fisheries also about management and so how you give out and allocate licenses is also about how a country decides to use its sovereign rights in order to enhance or maximize the sustainability of those resources and so I'd like to just kind of emphasize that when we think about fisheries licensing and access as a whole. Okay yes and then from Aurora Matheus regarding the UN law of the sea convention as the general framework which provisions are missing or could have been negotiated in this subject I guess in relation to fisheries access agreements yes I am not fisheries lawyer and in this audience I would be very reluctant to take on that question. Yeah yeah I saw a comment that maybe Marcio wants to address it very briefly Marcio who is the lawyer. Yeah oh yes but I'm not going to address that question but basically just one issue Otto and Liam and participants that was very since we have received any questions of future phases I'm going just to summarize what FAO is planning to carry out in the next phases of this study so as Liam mentioned this first part was only the mapping of the access agreements of access arrangements so those are it's basically a mapping with the basic characteristics of each region framed by social and geopolitical context the next three phases that we foresee it's going to solve many of the questions that we have received the first the first phase the second phase is an economic analysis of the of the arrangements so in those in those analysis in addition to the economic side we are going to include the institutional framework transparency possibility feasibility of local sourcing resource management fishing rights policy operations etc the second the third phase it's going to be the application itself in terms of what are local bottlenecks that create problems for the supply of sometimes services associated to those fishing arrangements and in the last phase it's going to be the interconnectivity with other agencies in terms of major topics like IEU drugs trafficking fraud etc so those are the main three pillars that we're planning to conduct in addition to the first one of the mapping thank you Marcio now I'd like to give the floor to Don Syme from New Zealand who has asked for the floor and Don Syme please thank you chair thanks Adam yeah really really interesting presentation and really useful piece of work I can see already I've been just wanted to say I've been really happy with your characterization of of the the Pacific so far I think I think you've raised some good points highlighting how well the vessel day scheme has been working as a as quite a unique cooperative arrangement and also the sensitivities around release of this of this information from coastal states it is it is certainly a sensitive issue that is context specific and it's it's not necessarily the same for Pacific Island coastal nations as it is for the EU context necessarily so that's really I think you've presented things in a really balanced way just just had a question I was useful Marcio is talking about the next phase phases a lot of the messaging today is around context specificity and when you're thinking about voluntary guidelines at a global level have you got any initial thoughts about how you would how you would even think about global level voluntary guidelines when when this issue is so context specific do you have any I know it's early days but any any initial thoughts on on how you might manage that thanks chair thank you don it's a tough question um Liam can you can you try uh yeah my someone's turned my video off but um I that's a very difficult question and um oh there we go and so I think that we could start by trying to understand who is doing access and from there we could start to think about perhaps the from a corporate governance perspective and the companies that are engaged having some more transparency as well in how they're doing it and you could imagine that the companies themselves could be asked to be more transparent and perhaps given the fact that they were very often the golden more global players in other words operating in multiple fisheries at the same time um that would give us a greater sense of their strategies now of course that would also be very commercially sensitive and and I think that for this to be effective any kind of global arrangements to be effective you would need a core of relatively good corporate players to be engaged in the process of negotiation um that's a very sensitive beginning of an answer I'm sorry I can't give you more in the moment okay thank you and in any case and any such process within the FAO would have to be of course done in a very transparent manner with the full you know involvement of all the the members of of course which also would have to endorse the final result and I'm sure it would have to go through the usual mechanism of an expert consultation technical consultations maybe in in various steps through possibly one of the the subcommittees etc before it goes to COPE so it will be a long and inclusive process do we have more questions here I don't see any raised hands um let's see if there are some questions we do have one and two questions but I think we've answered them already regarding access to to data which you said had been difficult but at least it's more it's doable compared to how it was in the past at least and of course as you mentioned certain countries organizations like the EU of course have a requirement and obligation to keep these access agreements because it's public money to keep them in the public domain I think you've you've replied to to the others now I don't know well Beatrice Goree is also here and of course she has been working on these agreements for for quite some time I don't know if Beatrice Goree you want to just make a short comment on the on the social dimension which of course you have been very much involved with in in the past also um I think miss uh miss Jessica Landman wanted to have the her her hand raised who sorry uh Jessica Landman Jessica Landman yes please yes my question is that the remark that you made about the about the lessons from the vessel day scheme being applicable in places where the fish are mostly found in the EEZs of the countries in question whether that would be whether there are any lessons there for the countries of West Africa that you might allude to as they think about cooperation may I yes please I think that there's I think that the West African context is there's a lot of great potential and I think that it's not my area at all so I would defer on understanding the specific context but in my basic understanding there is a lot of great potential for West African coastal states to to to activate some of the existing sub-regional arrangements more fully and institutions and to perhaps learn from the real gains that have been made in the Pacific context in terms of capturing more revenue of course a lot of this also connects to some of the other questions that have been asked in in the chat about how do we um think about how to measure those gains and you know if it's just government revenue is that government revenue being hypothecated I channeled to specific outcomes or is it being lost in the treasury on whatever else and I think that that's a really important kind of question that hasn't really been addressed in in all of the contexts that we've talked about where the money goes and then of course it's up to the democratic or the sovereign state to decide that and but it would be I think more powerful to the arguments of enhancing revenue from access agreements if that revenue were clearly um uh hypothecated towards um yeah citizens people that live in that country or industry development or whatever that country decides but yeah okay thank you for that um do any of the other panelists want to to add something I don't know if Iceland you want some final remarks Stefan before I close we've answered all all the questions so far and of course we're also available later on for for questions for those of you who haven't phrased your questions yet um Stefan you want to to add something uh just just to to say again thanks a lot it's been a very very interesting discussion and good guidance on the way forward the just one observation us as the interim chair of the blue food alliance or aquatic food alliance I have been made more aware of the nutritional factor in this whole debate so thanks again for always adding something new to the debate thanks and and thanks to fall for the event thank you well thank you thank you Stefan unless there are and no one who wants to to add some final remarks or additional questions then I'd like to thank all of you for first of all for being here um for your many good and and well crafted thoughtful questions to Liam of course uh and his team for uh being in charge of and delivering this very important first phase of the project and also for hopefully being being willing to continue this thank you to to Iceland of course for their support during the first phase and their willingness and interest also in the second phase and also uh thank you to to all of you who have contributed to to making this more more more interesting and and rewarding and and also the final remark from Stefan regarding for example the nutritional dimension and Merrill Williams about the gender dimension there are so many things that are relevant that we maybe don't think about in in in the very first uh our first analysis which very often deals with the fish and the money but there are so many other dimensions that are equally important and maybe more important for many of the stakeholders so with that I I thank you thank you again all of you and hereby close the meeting and thank you Mariana and and Marshall for helping helping me realize this event today so thank you again and and goodbye thank you thank you thank you everyone for joining thank you


Hi everyone, Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com coming at you with a really nice one here, 2020-2021 Panini National Treasures Basketball Four Box. Pick your team number 19. Big thanks to, we're gonna use this as, as to hide the hits there. All right, big thanks everybody here. Thanks for picking your team straight up. I appreciate that. On a Tuesday the 21st. Thank you. Michael ended up with last spot mojo, Timberwolves, good luck to him.  Thank you. Now we did have to do a couple random number block randomizers. So this was actually from yesterday. So the break is tonight on the 21st, on the 20th yesterday was the randomizer for this. So if you wanted to take a look at that, look at the 20th, videos from the 20th. But those were the results. And this is a fairly larger one right here featuring all of those teams. It's a number block randomizer that we did and that one we did today. Not too long ago if you were watching live. So you get a block of numbers for that group of teams right there. Set those aside. Let's hydrate a little bit. There it is, 2020, 2021 National Treasures Basketball. Let's see what's been marinating in here. And we'll, I did not notice any of, any more cases of this to post. So hard to get out of this box. I guess packed, packed with too many hits. Not sure when we're gonna get more, but just keep checking back on jasphyscasebreaks.com and I'm sure we'll find, I'm sure you'll find some basketball to break with us, jasphyscasebreaks.com. Maybe some more NT, a redemption on the bottom. Who could that be? All right, so we're gonna use this playing card here, the Jack of Diamonds. Put that right on top to hide the hits a little bit. All right, we're gonna lead off with 15 out of 49, Gordon Hayward, Hornets, Shawn Matic. Anyone wanna venture a guess for the redemption for bragging rights? Here's the one plate per box. It's gonna be for the Knicks. That is RJ Barrett. Nice plate. That is for the Knicks. That's David B, picked up the Knicks straight up. All aboard the Big Hit Express. Woo-hoo! Jason Kidd, 59 out of 99, biography materials. That'll be for Dallas. That's gonna be a number block team. So in case you're new to number blocks, that's 59 out of 99, right? So that goes to number nine. Dallas nine is gonna be David B. We've got Michael Porter Jr., 38 out of 99, piece of history, century materials.  Thank you, Jessica. Ivan's guessing KD for the redemption. Two-color dual relic Josh Green for Dallas. That's 45 out of 99. So Dallas five is gonna be for Matthew Sharap, who won that spot in one of our fillers. It's a nice patch. Devin Vassel, 17 out of 25. That's gonna go to Sacramento, San Antonio, Evan. Evan with the Spurs. We've got Glenn Rice, NBA Greats autograph, 75 out of 99 for Sean and the Charlotte Hornets. Then we've got Chauncey, nice. Chauncey Billups, 87 out of 99. Treasured signatures. That's Pistons, David with the Chauncey. Delivered a championship to Detroit. I think, I don't wanna say, be my Lakers that year. All right, one more than the redemption. We've got Apprentice Inc., Kira Lewis Jr., 24 out of 99. And the redemption, good luck everybody. Colossal material autographs. Car 25. And it's gonna be Zee. Ooh, did Hollywood get it? I-O-N, Williamson. There you go, Hollywood. Gets the bragging rights, good guess. That's for the Pelicans. Paul Norton picked up the Pels straight up. Nice second year's eye on autograph. All right, good start. Box one in the books. Box two. All right, second box. Wow, another redemption on the bottom. Any guesses on that one? 36 out of 99, LeBron James.  So Lakers, six, which is gonna be LeBron's number. David B. One plate per box, this one's gonna be for the Magic, Evan 48. Orlando is a number block team, part of that Golden State group. Orlando one, Michael. Michael C. All aboard the Big Head Express, whoop whoop. 30 out of 99, Steven Adams. Pelican's edition going to Paul. 35 out of 99, Kira Lewis Jr., another one for Paul and the Pels. For that, this redemption, we got Giannis guesses, Morant, Killian Hayes. Here's Sadiq Bay. Six out of 99. Piston's Relic going to David. Oh, he's out, come on. Five out of 25, nice Anthony Edwards, triple Relic. We'll find a little ink on this. This goes to Michael Cho and the T-Wolves. Picked up the T-Wolves straight up. Last pod mojo strikes again. Are we replaying that, maybe headphones? No, they're not, they went to commercial. There's Jared Culver. 91 out of 99. Michael with that one, we've got old Kurt Rambus. 13 out of 25. A timeless talent. That's going to go to the Lakers number block. So that'll go to Lakers three, 13 out of 25. Lakers three, Jose, Lakers three. There is Hakim the Dream, Olajuwon, 46 out of 99.  So Houston six, David B, Houston six. 46 out of 99. That's cool. We got a KD guest on the redemption. We got a Cole Anthony guest on the redemption. All right, well, good luck, everybody. It's going to be a rookie patch autographs horizontal card 128. If you know your card numbers, you know who this is right away, I don't. O, O, N, Y, O, N, Y, O, N, Y, O, N, Y, O, N, Y, O, N, Y, O, O, Kongwu, for the Hawks. Hawks are a number block team. So that goes to Hawks zero, Atlanta zero, part of that big Golden State group. Bryan S, last spot Mojo, nice. Former USC guy. And then also played with the, if I'm not mistaken, played with the ball brothers. Chino Hills High School. Nice one for Bryan and the ATL. We are halfway through this full case break. Next box, good luck. This is figure team 19. Keep your eye out on jaspeyscasebreaks.com. We may, we don't have any more tonight, but we may have some more NT in the future. We're always keeping our eye out for NT basketball to deliver to you, the people. All right, no redemption here. Oh, actually there might be a, oh, that's just a thin card. Okay, no redemption in this one. There's Zach Levine, 38 out of 99. Chicago, Oren. This is my kind of town Chicago is. There's Ty Jerome for the Sons, by the time I get to Phoenix, she'll be rising, she'll leave a note right on the door. Phoenix Sons, Sons are a number block team, part of the other group. Phoenix one is Anthony, Anthony Aliska, Anthony. All aboard the Big Hit Express. Woo-hoo, out of fives and under, get the train whistle of course. Next card is Darius Basely, 15 out of 99 for OKC. That's a number block team, that's OKC five. That's part of the Golden State Group, Golden State Lakers Group. That's for Matthew Sharap with five. TJ Warren, 70 out of 99, Pacers. Pacers are a number block team, part of the Brooklyn number block group, different from the other group. So Pacers zero is gonna be for David B. 76 out of 99, Tyries Halliburton. Two color, triple relic. And that's for Ivan, picked up the Kings straight up. Just gonna be looking for a little link on that. Next is one out of 16 at timeline, Nas Reed, big relic there. Put it on the penny sleeve there, even that out a little bit. Next up is Nasir Little, 97 out of 99, Jersey and autograph, Portland, Orlando. With the trailblazers, Orlando's on the board. John Sammons, 83 out of 99, National Archives autograph for the Bulls, Oren, got the Bulls straight up. The thin auto is private signings, Alexi Pokhasevsky. Okay, okay, he's a number block team, but I don't think this is a number. It is not, so this will be randomized to one person in that group. And that's the big Golden State Lakers Dallas group right there, so that'll be randomized to one person. And the last one here is for the Jazz, one out of 99, the first one ever made. Two-color patch, rookie patch and auto, Oduka as a Buuike for David Beatt and Utah. Utah, final box, good luck. If you haven't hit yet, fingers crossed. Grab the lucky rabbit's foot, get the four-leaf clover, pressed in between the pages of the Bible, I guess. All the luck, all the prayers. Crossed fingers, crossed toes, crossed arms. Wow, another redemption on the bottom. Any final guesses for bragging rights on the last redemption? 39 out of 49, Dilo, D'Angelo Russell for Michael and the T-Wolves. We got a Kevin Knox, a Knox in the box for New York. David B with the Knicks. All aboard the Big Hit Express, whoop, whoop. We got Oliver's guessing Lamello, that'd be huge. Hayes, David B's guessing. Jalen Smith is Mike Tower's guess. I wish, Brian, we don't have any more cases of this. We will not be running this back, but we'll always be on the lookout for NT cases. So keep an eye on Jaspy's casefreaks.com every minute of every day. Boyan Bogdanovich, Jazz, David, Roy's guessing Trey Young, Hollywood's guessing John Moranke, Grant Williams, five out of 99, Celtics Relic. Part of the, it's a number block, part of that Golden State group, so that's five. Matthew Sharab with Boston Five. Boone's guessing Obi-Toppin. You got Julius Randall, 70 out of 99. David with the Knicks. 59 out of 99.  Dallas is a number block team, so Dallas nine will be for David B. David having a nice little break here. We got a one of one. Devin Harris, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas one. Part of that Golden State group, Michael Cho. Dallas one, all aboard the Big Hit Express. Woo-hoo. I like that kind of pattern and design they got there for these timeless talents autograph. All right, couple more. Thin autograph, another auto, and then the redemption, Jay Sean Tate. Private signings rookie autograph. Houston is part of that Golden State group, so here's what we're gonna do, because we've got another randomizer here. This will go to the name on top. That's the first non-numbered one that we pulled, and this will be the second one, because it's the second one we pulled for that same number block group. All right, one more, and then the redemption. We've got a Ricky Rubio four out of 10. Penmanship autograph for Michael and the T Wolves. Dave's guessing Tyrese Maxie on the redemption. Here we go. Clutch factor signatures prime. Card 41, who could that be? Clutch factor signatures prime. C-O, Cole, Cole Anthony. It's Cole Anthony for the Orlando Magic. That's part of the Golden State number block group that Orlando is, and that's gonna go to Brian S. There you go. And there you have it, boys and girls. Very solid break, another great NT break in the books. We appreciate everybody getting in on the action. And now, let's do a little randomizing here. So we're gonna flip back to the list. We'll go to that Golden State tab. So it was OKC, right there in Houston, with the two autographs. This should be some fresh dice, yes. New list, excellent. Let's grab everybody's names here. And the top two, we'll get some autographs after nine times, five into four. Top name with the Pogoszewski and the second name with the Tate, after nine. Good luck, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And good luck. Once more, right? Again, yes, again, ninth and final time. Top two names are gonna be Michael and David. Michael, your name's on top, so you'll get the Pogoszewski on-card autographs, private signings. And David, nice break for you. It gets the rookie, Jay Chantate, auto, the Rockets. There you go. That's a good one. I'm gonna go with the Pogoszewski. Auto. The Rockets, there you go. Both rookie autos, both private signings, both solid stuff. Thanks for watching everybody. I'm Joe for jaspyscasebreaks.com. We'll see you next time for the next break. Bye-bye.


Hello Hussain, today you've got a draw with Yavanka Huska, it's quite a tough game, tell us something about it. Quite long game unfortunately, you know my strategy was, as I told my colleagues in the team, that I will be the most boring player in the whole team. I'll just play boring chess, solid and I will live the victories for the others. I was trying to play all the walls, like Berlin Wall, China Wall, whatever wall I play. And Spain Wall, all those walls. Yeah, and today I thought okay it's time to score some points and I spent my whole evening and this morning preparing for Yavanka, some Queen Gambits and the London system but unfortunately nothing of that happened and she surprised me with the first move. So all the preparations go down to the window. It happens in chess, okay let's have a look at the game. Okay Hussain, your opponent surprised you with her first move, what was it about? I used to play Bishop g4 systems against this line, the Reti, but recently I saw an interesting idea, it was played by a few good players which I used in this game, I thought okay let's give it a try, knight d7, basically the idea I just want to get my solid setup as always, knight to b6, bishop to f5 after d4. And that's of course I want to play e5 here, if white plays bishop g2 it will be a different type of position after e5 and Yavanka chose to go d4. After d4 I got my setup which starts with knight b6 and yeah now the bishop is coming to f5 and the pawn to e6, c6 and yeah black will, black is having very easy game I guess as I see it and I quite like this idea for black and it showed yeah and the game I mean she wasn't sure what to do and I got very decent position out of the opening.  Yeah it's a very unusual position, yeah that's what I like about this idea that it's kind of new you know setup and it has some interesting ideas so I was happy to play this today. And then Yavanka played b3, I thought she's planning to you know put the bishop on a3 to make e6 difficult because I want to play put bishop on a5 and I was like okay the bishop is coming to a3 and it's not easy to make e6 anymore so I had to give it a thought but she changed her mind after bishop a5 she she didn't play bishop a3 anyway she decided to put the bishop on b2 I guess yeah but not yet so I don't play this move first yeah here just the standard moves she chose to to fiancate to all the bishops and then there's an h6 move yeah h6 is very important to get the bishop back yeah yeah to f6 castles, b7, knight e5, castles, castles, I mean here it's quite difficult what to do for white against this solid setup I mean c4 I will not react and e4 very hard to realize and black have some ideas black have some ideas c6 knight comes back to d7 and then maybe b5 so for me it's easy to play but white has to find a good plan especially after a4 a5 whenever you push c4 this square becomes so weak yeah sorry that's okay so it's it's it's not easy white is hesitating and where to go to go e4 to go c4 not so easy to say yeah c1 I will just yeah c6 c6 and I got my setup finally and yeah she spent she burned a lot of time thinking what to do here but in the end she went c4 and now here I spent some time to find something original and I think I came out with an interesting idea to be it yeah very weird move of course but it has a small idea that I want to remind white about the square this is the the price of a4 a5 in the beginning now you play c4 okay I will try to use that and yeah white is not so easy to do probably the knight is coming in few moves but hard to say what white can do okay so she tried knight f4 and the knight continue and it's journey to e4 okay f3 is trying to get e4 I guess might be four and then she gets this e4 and I was actually very happy that she was overextending here because I think this center is a liability here for white rather than you know going for it I mean after a simple move bishop h7 just not react I have some useful moves coming up and again you played bf3 and you blocked your own bishop and all my pieces are happy pieces where I don't have bad pieces so far and here I found a quite interesting idea rook e8 with bishop f8 my plan is to prepare c5 at some point if white doesn't do anything I have a plan like rook c8 and c5 like prepare the break and once I do my own break it will be tough for white yeah so here he she decided to change this knight but now yes you get rid of the knight but another piece comes to before okay and now the pressure is again on e4 yeah you're reminding her about a4 yeah back when she played a4 sure yeah okay so easy for black rook f1 and here was I think the critical moment in the middle game where I burned all my time calculating e5 quite interesting move okay very sharp and yeah I had to really assess this move carefully because if it works it works if it doesn't work it doesn't work so the basic idea was if white takes the pawn my idea was simply to take here 3 minute move of course if you trade the I guess it's over because simply I'm attacking the knight on d2 and it's tough for white so you need to move the queen somewhere but I thought I will simply take and if the knight takes I'll just move the queen and the pawn on e5 is quite weak that's what I thought yeah but then I started to think again can we go back to this to here yes after e5 she can start with cd5 cd5 and now take which is more logical not logical and now of course again queen e2 and now it's quite not the same you know all white pieces are working and all the rooks all the rooks are in the game so yeah I had to reject this line and but it took me so much time to calculate this line and then in the end I said okay I said okay let's go slow it's too exciting play for the squares too exciting take it easy yeah calm down calm down yeah all the pieces are great and let's see what she will do the next move yeah because I have still my ideas to bring the rooks to d8 and take queen e4 at some point yeah so queen e3 and here I think I found I found a quite interesting idea not sure how much is interesting but takes yeah the thing is if she takes by the pawn I have always this e5 break because if you take knight g4 it's positionally over you have to push d5 and then I will play on the dark squares you know the knight will come to c5 it's quite pleasant for black I guess yeah not much but it's nice yeah it's nice so um so we go back to queen e7 sorry you was down here three takes she took by knight and here I think I didn't make the right decision I'm not sure I I took with the bishop but maybe again rook d8 maybe was right more patient move just to bring all the guys and yeah well I I found I thought this position after takes e5 I thought I have good chances you know to to play against this bad bishop on g2 but turn out that white has some counterplay after d5 yeah it's happened in the game and you got your yeah I asked the queen question I mean runs away bishop a3 yeah I thought okay to make this plan work I mean bishop e4 to justify it I need to trade the bishops but it turned out it's not a great idea otherwise it will be a position of masterpiece but you know it's gonna quite didn't work because of c5 here yeah cut across your plan yeah and I had some issues in my calculation here yeah yeah I I thought that as it happened in the game takes takes e4 queen c3 yeah I just totally missed bishop h3 how I have no clue I just played rook c8 I saw bishop h3 and here already I am in big trouble yeah yeah in big trouble somehow by miracle I managed to not to lose immediately and to escape to a very yeah unpleasant end game yeah very unpleasant end game yeah you can just jump anywhere in the middle game and the end game yeah it was it was very tough end game without time you know it's hard to protect but yeah somehow I managed to save the day well done yeah maybe I shouldn't think about you know scoring points yeah let's let's continue to play boring chess and then we'll see okay when the right time will come it will come and see yeah thank you for your boring game yeah thank you so much


The present study found that cola consumption was negatively correlated with bone mineral density, BMD, in Korean males aged 12 to 25 years. Additionally, cola drinkers had lower calcium intakes compared to non-cola drinkers. This suggests that cola consumption may have a negative effect on bone health in this age group. Further research is necessary to determine whether or not cola consumption has a direct impact on bone health.


The imperial planning and mustering for the invasion of the traitor-held world of Rax, and for the recapture of the departmental munitorium Citadel and supply dump therein, had taken years to properly come together, requiring the cumbersome and dysfunctional wheels of the Administratum and military bureaucracies to turn, far enough, to render the imperial siege army with the arms, armaments, and human resources they required to conduct the operation. The infamous death-core of Krieg, whole battalions of fanatically indoctrinated and conditioned soldiery, had been selected for the task. And as siege and tactical officials predicted, with uninterrupted supplies of shells and bodies, it would take no fewer than eleven years standard to recapture Rax, but an imperial victory nonetheless. It would be bloody, it would be costly, but it would be victory, and that is precisely what higher-ups in the imperial chain of command demanded. Its initial unfolding went, well, almost precisely to grim merciless plan. You know then, that this is a further continuation of one's chronicle on that most horrendous of chapters in imperial history, the siege of Rax. With much pomp and circumstance, Lord Commander Zwellk established his command headquarters upon the world of Thracian Primaris, capital of the Scaras Sector. His presence on the actual field of battle would not be required. The reams of forward data projection his logist staff had provided him with had calculated the victory on Rax to the month. All Zwellk had to do was ensure the supply lines of the fortress world were be remaining open, smooth and plentiful, adopting a role less of a military commander, and more of a bureaucrat, with an especially resplendent uniform. And indeed, coming together as Zwellk's mighty war machine most absolutely was. As the Lord Commander was furnishing his office on Thracian Primaris, the first of his soldiers were finally embarking. 2,000 military servicemen of the 143rd Krieg Siege Regiment embarked upon transport ships on 790-812-M41, becoming the first in a growing armada around the Imperial war world, the grand astral muster bound for Vrax. It would not be until 199 of the same year that the first of this convoy would eventually reach the system itself, having rendezvoused with the Imperial Navy Flotilla under the command of Admiral Rassiac aboard the cruiser Lord Balerophon. The defenders had no fleet of their own, and Vrax no orbital station defences. But all precautions were taken nevertheless. The Flotilla manoeuvred into geostationary orbit above the far side of Vrax from the Citadel and its laser defense batteries, to allow for all orbital drops to be undertaken with as much safety and surety as possible. The initial landing sites had been assayed to provide the best possible beachhead. The demands of manpower and materials besieged place upon the army meant an uninterrupted flow of goods from orbit was essential. The 143rd, as first embarked, would grant the honour of being the first Kriegers to set foot upon Vrax, with orders to immediately and thoroughly fortify the beachhead they had secured. For all the care and concern the Imperial army made towards potential enemy attacks, there simply were none. The traitorous cardinal remained within his citadel, with his army making absolutely no attempts to halt or interrupt the landings. These landings would take almost a full Terran standard year to complete. This was no sudden assault, it must be understood. This was no massive planetary invasion of the Astartes dropping from drop pods to seize enemy positions with rapidity. This was a ponderously slow yet crushingly unstoppable juggernaut of the Imperium at play. The siege army was stockpiling all that it would need for a years long conflict that the tactical officials had predicted. Yes, there would be supply lines that would run out system for the entire duration of the war, but it would be a poor siege army indeed that did not plan for redundant food, ammunition, arms and armaments. All were being stockpiled in earnest, and the kilometres of regimented tent cities surrounding the Imperial prefabs were filling with the soldiers of Krieg. The departmental immunatorium additionally landed a massive labour force to supplement the guards own fortification building operations. Half a million souls from the penal world of Arfista were set to work building rail lines to link the landing beachhead to a carefully selected forward operating zone closer to the citadel as it lay over 1,500 kilometres to the north from the siege army's present encampment. The first of these depots welcomed the men of the 3rd Krieg siege regiment on 965-812-M41 born across the Saritama Plains by massive locomotive engines provided by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The remaining 100 or so kilometres would be crossed upon foot or by armoured transport and as the first regiments began their advance, the immunatorium began expanding the rail lines to branch out into newly built sub-depots. Like arteries, the lines were now beating and carrying along them the life-blood of the siege day and night as massive locomotives steamed ceaselessly across the flats. With the preparation for their advance in place, the overall plan of attack would involve offensives on two separate fronts. The front force attack, while absolutely within the character of the Imperium, would only allow the foe to mass in the defence of it. Rather, encirclement of the citadel was considered the wisest choice. Approaches towards it, of course, would be dictated by terrain. The citadel of Vrax was positioned in an unsurprisingly very naturally defensible position. To its south and east, a network of treacherous gorges and canyons, linked to Vrax's porous crust, made any land approach a functional impossibility, channeling the two-pronged Imperial attack into vectors from north and west. In the case of the former, the 1st and 30th Krieg Line Corps would form the bulk of the advance, while in the latter, this responsibility fell to the 12th and 34th Line Corpses. Circumnavigating the western line entirely, the 1st Corps were ordered to attack from the north, through not yet completed defences in order to move directly upon the 2nd Ring of Vraxian Lines. This would, however, leave them open to potential flanking attacks, nor being cut off entirely. It was not within the Doctrina of the Krieg to advance so rapidly, and without whole regiments protecting their flanks, so the potential for such a rapid engagement was shelved, in favour of the thorough erosion of the enemy's outer defences in their entirety. This would need to be done as ostensibly quickly as possible, to shrink the overall square footage of area controlled by the heretics, and allow the Krieg commanders time to probe the 2nd Defense Ring, the structure and capabilities of which were almost completely unknown. Once this line was taken from the enemy, the encirclement of the final Defense Ring would be possible, and the Citadel itself could be brought within range of the righteous artillery of the Imperium. After all of this was accomplished, the Defenders would truly be living upon borrowed time, and it would only be a question of the quantity of shells the Krieg would need to overwhelm the Citadel's voyage shields, pound its masonry into dust, and bayonet any of the survivors. Thanks to the diligence of an unnamed Administratum scribe, we have in a surprising instance of the cataloging of Imperial history an accurate timestamp for the precise moment the Siege of Wrakes began, 1-6-6-8-13-M-41, Imperial Reckoning. It began according precisely to the tactical plan laid out years before that moment, and with a typically Krieg entroitus, a barrage of every single artillery piece that had range. The Defenders of the Outer Lines had barely risen from their slumber when, from 15 kilometers distant, the sky fell in a hail of screaming munitions. Shells pulverized the trench lines and bunker pits, filling the air with flying shrapnel and choking clouds of dust. This initial reign of shells developed its own tempo, as the Krieg gunners fell into their trained rhythms, a lifetime of artillery drills functioning precisely as intended. There was no reprieve. As soon as one shell landed, another would follow suit. This would continue for an entire morning, a relentless refrain of the Emperor's high-yield explosive munitions, finally making itself known upon the Defenders' heads. The Wraxian militia scrambled to mount counter-battery fire. Rising to meet the Krieg's earth shaker and bombard artillery pieces, vassalisk cannons concealed in well-shielded pits emerged, hurling the Defenders' response back towards Imperial lines. It was, initially at least, a pitiful reply, at first falling far too short of Krieg positions, then too wide, but as the Wraxian overseers beat their charges into place, they eventually began to find their mark. The first imperial casualties of the siege was the 413th Battery, where a direct enemy hit torched off the earth shaker's ammunition reserves, killing all eight of its crew. It was considered a lucky hit, and it almost certainly was, but it was nevertheless a reminder that this was now a duel, not wholesale extermination. As the artillery crews intensified their offrains, the shells soaring over the Van Mir's lands' wastes, the arid ground felt the tread of Krieger infantry divisions. This first advance was not one made with combat in mind. The regiments were under orders to simply begin forward fortifications of the famous Krieg trench networks. The artillery duel was cover, and besides, the earth shakers and bombards would need more than a single morning to soften the enemy's defenses enough for a general attack to be mounted. And so, under the criss-crossing contrails of the shells, the Krieg set about their digging. By nightfall, the first foxholes, six feet into the dry clay, had been established. Tomorrow's work would be connecting each two-man foxhole by trenches, thus connecting each portion of the line into a single trench per squad in the space of a single day. When the days had followed, these would only spread out, a lattice of rudimentary trenches connecting into a vast front line that had sprung up in mere days. These first trenches, perhaps six feet deep and two feet wide, were merely the beginning. Once the network had been established, they were widened and deepened significantly. Sandbags were filled and lined upon the parapets. And when night fell, razor-wire teams scurried through the new no-man's land, creating vicious barriers to prevent enemy raids on forward positions. Heavier weapons, too, had emplacements carved out for maximum overlapping fields of fire. The Krieg entrenching system was as meticulous as it was rigorous. Platoons divided the work impeccably. Two squads on sentry duty, two more digging, two more resting. A rotation that ran ceaselessly, day and night. Once the forward lines were completed, communications and supply trenches began to spider their way back towards the artillery positions, and narrower lines towards spotter positions in no-man's land would allow for advance warning of enemy attacks. Attacks which, it must be noted, never once came during the entrenching phase. No infantry assaults were ever mounted, with the Vraxian defenders remaining steadfastly ensconced within their bunkers under the relentless barrage of imperial shellfire. All the Krieg lines had to contend with was the odd round of sniper fire, or sporadic harassment by mortar bombardments. Despite nominally being referred to as a front line, the bunkers of the defenders were in no way as unified as the Krieg trenches. Indeed, many were not even necessarily linked by trenches. It was less a line and more of a defensible zone. The bunkers and structures built by Zafan's militia spread out over a colossal stretch of the wastes, controlling the vectors of approach with fire zones, pillboxes, weapon emplacements, tank traps, and even rudimentary barriers cobbled together from masonry waste and barrels of promethium to torch should the necessity emerge. They were, however, far more robust than the trenches of the Krieg. Vraxian bunkers were made out of ferrocrete and rockcrete, all sank deep into the pumice rock of Vrax to protect them from shelling. Laser wire fields, too, stretched between these positions, as did one of the most dangerous aspects of the defenses, the minefields. Since the Citadel's first construction millennia prior, the Van Meers land wastes had all been mined on their major approaches, being of no value at all to Imperial elements' planet side, but considered the obvious approach for any land attack upon the fortress. Zafan's men, many being traitorous service people from the Immunitorum or Planetary Defense Forces, had known this, and had taken steps to excavate and relay as many of the minefields as they could manage, in validating all Imperial intelligence upon their locations. Where they now lay between the morass of bunkers and pillboxes and razor wire, none could say beyond what bloody experimentation could bring. The first Imperial assault upon the Outer Defenses would fall on the sector designated 4639, would be undertaken by the 149th Regiment of Foot. The sector had been designated by Imperial intelligence officers as incomplete at the time of the siege army's forward advance, providing hopeful tactical staff an opportunity to force a wedge into the Outer Lines. 149th would be covered on their flanks by the 143rd and 150th Regiments, with the 11th Assault Corps placed upon readiness at their rear, standing by to exploit any breach in the defenses that may emerge once the attack broke out. Preparations for this offensive, as it was eagerly termed by Imperial command, were extensive, as was the degree of coordination between the infantry regiments and the artillery corps that would be required. There would even be munitions coordination between the two wings of the siege army. Infantry regiments were expected to contribute to the overall bombardment with their own trench mortars. While, back in the dugouts, heavier mortars would target heavy weapon emplacements. Further back still, the Medusa cannons would target enemy bunkers and pillboxes, while the Earthshakers would focus on a rolling bombardment that would proceed the mass infantry advance. Finally, the mighty Bombards would occupy the latter role initially and then switch fire to target remaining static defenses. Four million shells had been ready to achieve this, and over half a million infantry were likewise assembled, the first wave of which went over the top at 212-813-M41, scaling the rims of their trenches to move finally upon the militia defenses. Head of them, the rain of shells was immolating and chewing through everything within sight. Razor wire, bunkers, service roads, tank traps, and the surface of No Man's Land itself was being churned into a cratered wasteland. The bombardment had been intensifying for days hence. A massive display of concentrated destruction, yet all those who were to advance obviously knew that no matter the firepower descending upon them, the resistance of the heretics would have endured. It was not long before the peace of No Man's Land gave way to a torrent of incoming fire as the overseers of the Varaxian militia bellowed their shell-shocked charges into firing positions. A lateral rain began, not of water but of munitions, and that was even before the enemy's artillery pre-sighted upon No Man's Land began to fire. Soil, wreckage, and bodies all were tossed and churned through the wastes, the incoming fire scything down the Kreeg by the hundreds then the thousands. The land became a killing ground, officers urging their platoons forward only to fall to gunfire themselves, whole squads going to ground only for artillery shells to turn them into meat and blood seconds later. Back in the trenches, squads of Kreeg moved to the firing step, awaiting their turn, only for the bodies of those who had just departed to crash back in amongst them. This was the meat grinder, all had expected, and if the eventual hurricane of death and destruction that greeted the siege army as it began its attack had made any sort of impact upon morale, it did not show upon the brainwashed psychotortured Kreeg. Some squads fell back due to losses sustained. Many, many more did not, pushing through the blizzards of fire to throw themselves uselessly at the bunkers of their foes. In sector 469-391, the 600 man strong 32nd company lost 542 of their number in the initial short advance, the remaining 58 not being considered enough strength even to constitute a full platoon. Yet, despite this, as was the insanity of the Kreeg, the second wave was similarly prepared to follow suit. To follow exactly as the first had done, even if it was now appearing to be not but certain death. Such indeed was their fate. The fate of the third wave too. At night, starlight shells illuminated a no man's land that appeared to be one monstrous organism, painted red with human viscera and literally writhing with the injured as they all attempted to crawl piteously towards imperial trenches. The slaughter of the day had been absolutely immense, but it would continue again the next day as the bombardment continued throughout the night and the third wave mounted its own insufficient attack. Gaines were nonexistent. Not a single enemy bunker or position had fallen into imperial hands and had been held successfully. Clearly the intelligence officers had aired. Nothing about the defender's response spoke to anything other than a fully completed and manned series of defences. There had been no breach forced. There had been no cracks exploited. None apparently had existed. The militia perhaps emboldened by this initial victory sought to take advantage of the devastation they had wrought upon the Kreeg with a counter-offensive, surging out of their lines in infantry waves with armored support from Chimera transport vehicles. There was no preliminary bombardment from the traitors. Clearly, their commanders intended for the surge to catch the imperial lines off-guard and unawares. But in doing so, underestimated the psycho-conditioned Kreeg they faced.  In trench segment R4623892, the enemy would against the odds make contact with imperial lines due to an unexplained insufficiency of artillery cover in that particular sector of No Man's Land. Descending into a vicious and messy hand-to-hand combat, the militia and remaining Kreeg fought bitterly in the mud for control over, effectively, more mud, all of which had been churned into ruin by the enemy mortar and grenade barrages. It was not until the surviving lieutenant of the sector voxed for earth shaker support that the imperium willingly and ably obliterated its own forward trench line, wiping out both the remaining 20 Kreeg and an uncountable number of Vraxian militia in the process. In the morning, the artillery took up the tempo again, the duel beginning anew. Three days had passed and the dead of both Kreeg and militia alike were spread over hundreds of kilometers. No actual ground had changed hands. Fortification was response on both sides. The Kreeg rapidly expanded their trench network, adding third and fourth lines and expanding gun nests. This was, however, conducted with no let-up in infantry engagements from the imperial side. The Vraxian defences had to be broken, of course, and the Kreeg were fighting the only way they knew how, the way the imperium had made them to be. The 149th Regiment were rotated out, with many more bodies waiting to take their place. Countless soldiers went to their deaths in the following weeks, with each attack repulsed. At hill 204, the first foothold was successfully captured by the 309th Regiment, who managed to defend the position for several weeks before the enemy eventually recaptured it. The stalemate would continue unabated for months, with both factions settling into a horrid rhythm of daily artillery duels and nighttime raids upon enemy trenches. The latter made both to shore up No Man's Land's defences and traps as well as punish the foe, often concerned themselves with the capture of enemy prisoners to interrogate, although at no point would the scant information extracted under extreme torture result in anything considered substantial. Life in the trenches, if it can be called life, was misery personified. The Kreeg lived a little better than beasts of burden upon other worlds, crammed into filthy warren barracks like rodents, consistently running the risk of drowning as Vrax's unstable climatics dumped deluges of rain into the trenches daily. Even when the water drained into the porous rock of Vrax, it mixed with the detritus of the trenches to form a thick grey mud that clung to everything and anything. There was never any time, nor indeed anywhere, for the dead to be buried. As weeks turned into months, more and more corpses simply piled up in the wastes beyond imperial lines, a carpet of putrefaction. Where possible, the grim figures of Kreeg quartermasters in their attendance moved amongst them, tallying the losses and recovering equipment that could be cleaned, repaired and stockpiled for use by another garden that would likely meet the same fate as the original owner. They were both, after all, supply lines, items upon a manifest. In some trenches, recovered skulls or bones became part of macabre votive shrines for those currently serving there, all of which perpetuated an oppressive atmosphere of grinding, inevitable death. This would go on for over a year. The first standard solar cycle of the Siege of Vrax ground on in the same bloody remorseless routine. They meet grinder in the truest of senses, as every day new Kreegers were ferried to the front lines to be torn asunder by enemy gunfire, only for their bodies to be pulverized by dueling, careless artillery pieces. This, truly, was the imperial war machine in action. Monstrous, pitiless destruction. A mathematical application of not only force, but human lives to achieve ends that were not even remotely yet in sight. Such was the degree of human remains at the front that the very air became a toxic miasma of infection and plague, held at bay only by dangerously high doses of antibiotics and the Kreeg's own stinking, cam-resistant uniforms. Something here would have to give, but if that were on the horizon, none could see it. The Siege of Vrax was now truly under way, but in a very real sense, this was only the beginning. Ave Imperator, Gloria and Excelsis Terra. Head on over to patreon.com-oculusimperia. If you'd like to receive more updates about the channel and any future videos, you can contact me or follow me on Twitter at oculusimperia. Otherwise, please like, subscribe, comment, let me know your feedback, and as ever, thank you very much for watching.


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wow you guys I am astounded by the activity on my channel since yesterday June 23rd you know before the day that day began I had around you know 136 subscribers or so and you know by the end of the day I remember like right now I currently have over 500 something like 400 of you maybe a little bit you know around 400 of you have joined the the channel subscribe to the channel and that allegory video had maybe 80 views and now it's over 20,000 views on floor it's that's a whole lot to happen in one day I'm glad you like the allegory I'll try not to take your subscription for granted I hope that you learn to think philosophically and I hope that these videos help you do so you know I'm pretty well aware that I can't make you believe anything and that's fine you know I don't want the responsibility of making you believe anything what I can do is I can just speak as if I know something was certain to you that's true yeah you know that's just the normal way speaking I get it I can propose ideas evidence for you to examine I can give you arguments I can tell you a lot of what the philosophers has said through history that's what I can do but beyond that you have the freedom and again maybe the last freedom you ever have you have the freedom to use your mind to put that evidence together to evaluate those arguments and to the best of your ability discover the truth the truth of our lives you have that freedom and you have that responsibility if you're gonna take up this project of actually voicing your conclusions you are now incurring a responsibility to be candid I want you to keep me honest it's only through the free exchange of ideas that we can ever uncover our own errors in other words if I'm gonna figure out where I'm making a mistake I'm gonna need an outside observer we are notoriously blind to our own errors you know what I'm really hoping is that you help keep people honest don't be rude but keep people honest and include yourself keep people honest through the use of reason experts are great experts are an excellent source of evidence but merely because an expert says something does not necessitate that is true keep people honest I'm also not suggesting that you be skeptical for the sake of being skeptical that's not the use of reason either keep people honest through the use of reason this involves collecting evidence putting the evidence together to see what truth relations hold between them to imply a conclusion that's argument argument it's not just shouting at each other collect evidence use argument and in you know the case of disagreement which let's face it it's going to happen use reason to figure out whether the argument is flawed or whether there's some problem with the evidence to do other than this to disagree or to put you know to give a conclusion without the use of reason is simply trying to bully people into your the conclusion that you want because all it is it says believe this because I say so that's not reason it's not honest so yeah hopefully you can keep me honest you can keep you honest and together we can continue down this road because let's face it we're on this road together for a really long time