$600m bill for IUU fishing

The operation will monitor both in shore and off shore ensuring that IUU fishing is addressed and sustainable fishing is implemented.

The costs of illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing amounted to $600million.

For this reason the Ministry of Fisheries, Permanent Secretary Atelaite Rokosuka said the fishing industry being a major contributor to Fiji’s economy must be monitored.

“There was a study by the Fiji Fisheries Agency a few years back that stated about $600 million loss due to IUU fishing, this is in terms of valuation,” Ms Rokosuka said. A report from the Ministry of Fisheries stated that the $600m value of IUU fishing was between 2010 to 2015 and dropped to $330m between 2015 to 2017.

The report also states, the drop was due to the reduction of illegal transshipment, removal of unauthorised landing in ports and tightening of measures within our shores.

Moreover, the report indicated that unlicensed, unauthorised fishing, misreporting and illegal transshipment were the main contributors to IUU fishing.

Ms Rokosuka said the digitalisation of the ministry’s operations would assist on vessel inspection and registration to eliminate issues related to IUU fishing.

The operation would monitor both in shore and off shore ensuring that IUU fishing was addressed and sustainable fishing implemented.

She added with the e-system in place, it will loosen burden to the ministry of fisheries and stakeholders.

“The e-system will also enable developing countries with limited resources and technical capacity to fully participate in the implementation of combating IUU fishing” Ms Rokosuka said.