Protecting ‘Our Ocean’ f
with millions that depend on fisheries for their livelihood. Unfortunately, our ocean is facing peril, with 31.5% of the global fish stock being over-exploited leading to the collapse of fish stocks and ecosystems, which equates to irreparable damage to the environment, hence impacting us, who depend on the health of the environment. Whilst fisheries management tries to strive towards sustainability of fisheries, these international efforts are threatened by illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing across our ocean. These illicit activities are estimated to account for up to 20% of global catches, that is between 7 to 18 billion euros per year being lost to IUU fishing operators.
The magnitude of these activities, which interestingly extracts over 800 kilograms of fish illicitly every second, impacts the already sensitive marine ecosystems, food security and local economies. This will be one of the topics which will be discussed in this year’s edition of the ‘Our Ocean’ Conference.
Organised Crime in fisheries
Organised criminal groups (similar to those that operate in drug, arms and human smuggling) seize the occasion and profit from the high monetary value of fish. Such groups are known to set their operations in a transnational setting, taking advantage of lack of monitoring and enforcement capacities of different countries, generally being developing countries. Transnational organised criminal networks carry out offences across national borders in long-distance operations, involving multiple countries. Their modus operandi exploit the weak or unstable governance of countries that are unwilling or unable to monitor fishing activity and enforce fisheries laws in expansive areas of sea under their jurisdiction, especially when with an exclusive economic maritime zone stretching up to 200 nautical miles (just over 300km) from its shores.
Their activities involve fishing practices that are damaging the environment and exploit fish stocks with disregard to any measures taken by the country to conserve and sustainable manage the marine environment in its territory, hence inflicting serious damage to the marine environment and increasingly risking the collapse of food security. The globalisation phenomenon contributes to the transportation of caught fish to different port and market states and involving different flag and coastal States.
IUU fishing operations depend on various individuals, including ship owners, funders, operators, suppliers, corrupt authority personnel and traders, which are involved in IUU fishing all the way through the value chain. All these various individuals involved in the crime are situated in different states around the world, whereby offences are potentially committed in more than one jurisdiction.
Such organised groups assign tasks to each person and structure the group in a businessminded manner, thus making the IUU fishing operation orderly. IUU fishing operators are described as ‘organi[s]ed criminals who exploit the loopholes and gaps in a massive and fractured global fisheries management system’. Most operators also use secrecy mechanisms through the use of shell companies and ‘flags of convenience’ (flag states that register vessels with little or no control of their actions) to ensure anonymity, take advantage of tax breaks and carry out money laundering.
IUU fishing is known to be closely linked to a number of other illicit activities, such as trafficking in persons for the purpose of forced labour, the smuggling of drugs, document fraud and corruption. This was first recognised by the United Nations General Assembly in 2008, where it noted ‘the concerns about possible connections between international organized crime and illegal fishing in certain regions of the world’. Local communities in developing States face lack of job opportunities, especially when the local fisheries are under pressure by overcapacity and IUU fishing activities by foreign vessels. IUU fishing operators take