New body to help combat fisheries crime

NMU hosts cooperative organisation aimed at fighting scourge of marine pillaging

ANEW force to fight fisheries crime – a global plague that is destroying food resources, jobs and the environment – was launched at NMU yesterday. Anchored at NMU’s Centre for Law in Action (CLA), FishForce is supported by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and the Norwegian government, which has donated R40-million to start operations.

Links have also been established with Interpol.

CLA director Professor Hennie van As, the driving force behind the new organisation, said it would tackle the pillaging of marine resources in East and Southern Africa, as well as in southeast Asia through its partnership with the Indonesian authorities.

The challenge was enormous, he said.

“Fisheries crime and the illegal harvesting, processing and trading of fish and seafood globally is so huge that it is in effect a parallel economic system that is undermining sustainable economic growth.

“Countries are being deprived of taxes and citizens of jobs, food and income, and fisheries and environments are being destroyed.”

He said the plague of fisheries crime was hitting South Africa hard.

“We are losing 50% plus of the natural resources in our oceans.”

The launch was preceded by the first day of a two-day multinational conference on “Marine Resources: A Tangled Net”.

The two events were attended by academics, compliance officials and lawyers from Nelson Mandela University, Fisheries, SANParks, the State Security Agency and the National Prosecuting Authority.

Marine compliance officers from the Nelson Mandela Bay metro and other coastal municipalities, and representatives of environmental and civil rights groups were also in attendance.

FishForce had already begun training fishing control officers, police officers, prosecutors and revenue services inspectors working in the regions they were targeting, Van As said.

“Training will include crime scene protection, how to establish surveillance posts and conduct observation, and how to make reports and compile statements so as to improve the chances of conviction.

“Training has been very haphazard up until now. Ours will be sustained.”

Norwegian ambassador Trine Skymoen said the oceans had become the world’s biggest crime scene.

“The link between fisheries crime and other organised crime is now clear. We are talking human smuggling, fraud and drugs.”

She praised NMU for showing the way and said it was vital to protect the world’s oceans, not only to allow for sustainable harvesting of resources but also because they supplied 80% of the planet’s oxygen through phytoplankton.

Former NMU vice-chancellor Professor Derrick Swartz, a champion of ocean sciences, hailed the launch of the organisation but urged it to differentiate between greedy fisheries criminals and poor coastal communities fishing to survive.

“We hope the poor will not be policed upon but will become part of controlling and protecting our mutual heritage,” he said.

“If you do this, the power of FishForce will be magnified.”

The link between fisheries crime and other organised crime is clear