"No longer will we have to try to combat illegal fishing on a boat by boat basis"

Countries facing pressure on their fisheries by foreign vessels have been thrown a lifeline, with an international tribunal ruling that "countries can be held liable for not taking necessary measures to prevent illegal, unreported or unregulated fishing operations by their vessels in the waters of other countries"... This is quite massive actually!

The ruling is included in an Advisory Opinion issued today by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on the application of the West African Sub Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC) – comprised of Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal and Sierra Leone.
 
“This is a very welcome ruling that could be a real game changer,” said WWF International Marine Programme Director John Tanzer.   “No longer will we have to try to combat illegal fishing and the ransacking of coastal fisheries globally on a boat by boat basis.” 

The Advisory Opinion stated that countries have a duty of due diligence to ensure that their fishing vessels do not engage in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the waters of other countries and can be held liable for breach of this duty.
 
The Advisory also holds that the European Union can have the same due diligence duty as a flag State, when they are the party to fisheries access agreements with other states.
 
 West African waters are believed to have the highest levels of IUU fishing in the world, representing up to 37% of the region’s catch. 

The due diligence obligation means that flag States will have to take enforcement actions to ensure their vessels comply with the laws of SRFC member states and take measures necessary to ensure that their vessels comply with protection and preservation measures adopted by the SRFC member States.

The Tribunal also strengthened the obligations of neighbouring coastal states to each other, stating that  ‘The conservation and development of shared stocks in the exclusive economic zone of an SRFC Member State require from that State effective measures aimed at preventing over-exploitation of such stocks that could undermine their sustainable exploitation and the interests of neighbouring Member States.’
 
WWF will hold a workshop  in Dakar, Senegal  in June to explore what the rulings can offer to coastal states in protecting fisheries and livelihoods. 

Source here and the press release of the outcome International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea is here

China in the Pacific.. big fish in a big pond

Recently, I came across an interesting study by the Lowy Institute, a foreign affairs think-tank based in the in Sydney that analysed the role of Chinese Aid in the Pacific.

While working in fisheries around the pacific, you well aware of the Chinese presence in the mammothian number of vessels they have operating directly or indirectly (under local flags), the dominance of Chinese migrants in retail at most pacific islands, and the crappy leaking buildings they normally build as part of the foreign policy efforts and donate to the local governments. 

Interestingly, I've never heard of any Chinese funded fisheries project, at any level with most countries I worked in the pacific, albeit the massive presence they have in the Pacific fisheries.

Hence it was interesting to see The Economist pick up the story, so I transcribe some of their views.

" China has forked out nearly $1.5 billion in bilateral aid to the Pacific region since 2006—more than France or the European Union, and closing in on aid levels from the long-time Pacific partners of Japan and New Zealand.

Historical ties still count for much. Across the region, Australia remains easily the Pacific Islands’ biggest donor, contributing $6.8 billion in aid from 2006 to 2013. But the government of Tony Abbott, which took office in 2013, has since slashed its generous programme. Much of what is being distributed now pays the price of keeping local politicians amenable to troubled detention centres on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, and on the microstate of Nauru, where Australia sends its unwanted asylum-seekers.

America is still the region’s second-biggest giver of aid, contributing $1.7 billion between 2006 and 2013. But more than half of that went to the country’s satellite states in Micronesia, and their territories Guam and the Northern Marianas. When Hillary Clinton, then America’s secretary of state, attended the Pacific Islands Forum in the Cook Islands in 2012, she promised the region more attention.  Yet aid, expected to rise, has remained stagnant.

By contrast the expansion of Chinese help has been striking. At a summit in 2013 in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, China pledged tariff reductions on imports from islands in the South Pacific and $1 billion in preferential loans to them. China’s president, Xi Jinping, visited Fiji in November 2014, promising yet more development loans. 

Some observers have fretted that Chinese moves, in particular a meaty aid package signed in 2006, shortly before a coup, have undermined democracy in Fiji. Others point out that China also contributed $780,000 to the cost of running elections in September.

Chinese assistance to these small island states certainly comes at a price. Some now have hefty levels of debt; when difficulties in meeting repayments arise, debts are more likely to be rescheduled than forgiven. In the kingdom of Tonga, two-thirds of its external debt is owed to Eximbank, China’s foreign-aid bank, alone. Loan funds end up with Chinese firms bidding for government contracts. Raw materials and labour are mostly imported from China too ( And I can attest to that)

The result for Pacific islanders is a shiny stadium or gleaming new hospital without the benefits of either extra jobs or more money circulating in the local economy. Chinese investment in the Pacific Islands has been largely resource-driven. The $1.6-billion Ramu nickel mine in Papua New Guinea is easily the largest of China’s Pacific operations. A Chinese firm, Zhongrun International, is now the majority owner of Fiji’s Vatukoula gold mine. Another, Xinfa Aurum, is mining bauxite on Fiji’s second-largest island, Vanua Levu.

For most Pacific Islanders, however, the most obvious sign of China’s increased presence is inward migration. This swelling diaspora, made up mostly of small-scale traders, has happened independently of China’s aid push. Indeed it is burgeoning in some of the Pacific countries that recognise Taiwan (and thus have no diplomatic links with China). Riots in 2006 in the Solomon Islands and Tonga, and again in 2009 in Papua New Guinea, targeted such Chinese, and in some cases China evacuated its citizens. In the Pacific, China’s attention may before long be taken up with having to protect its overseas workers more."

Webinar with the Expert Panel on Legal and Traceable Fish Products

A couple of weeks ago I presented the final report on the recommendations provided by a Expert Panel on Legal and Traceable Fish Products, on which I serve as a member.

On the 30 of March my co-authors would be hosting a webinar for those interested on participating. At the time  I'll be jumping in between transhipping boats in the Marshall Islands working with them on a SOP for that activity, so unfortunately i'll not be participating... but the real experts will!

You can join the webinar by clicking here: eplat.eventbrite.com

So if you have questions about Expert Panel on Recommendations for a Global Framework to Ensure the Legality and Traceability of Wild-Caught Fish Product?

An international panel of experts from leading seafood businesses, environmental NGOs,and scientific societies has issued eight recommendations for securing seafood supply chains against the products of illegal fishing. The panelists will present their findings and answer questions during this international webinar.

Beside me (the only non-institutionalised :-), the seven following experts participated with the support of their respective institutions. 
•  Tejas Bhatt, Institute of Food Technologists
•  Mariah Boyle, FishWise
•  Bill DiMento, High Liner Foods
•  Michele Kuruc, WWF
•  Hans-Jürgen Matern, Metro Group
•  Petter Olsen, Norwegian Institute of Food, Fisheries and  Aquaculture Research (Nofima)
•  Steve Trent, Environmental Justice Foundation

Subsidies, Spying and short term gains in the Tuna Negotiations

Shane Jones (a sort of NZ Ambassador) and James Movick (the head of FFA - Fisheries Forum Agency - one of my main contractors) were in a interview with 3 News, and they talked of various things that are close to my soul: subsidies, Sanford (the company that gave me my 1st contract in NZ and a client in areas of my work) and spying (a hot topic in NZ politics, where it looks like out present government has been the hears of the US in this issues)

A while ago the sides change of Shane Jones, from a MP high on the Labour Party and potentially been seen as a Leader (the 1st one with Maori lineage), to accept a job with the opposition (the National present party in charge), as "New Zealand’s Pacific Economic Ambassador", was seen as master-movement by National to get rid of a potential leader of the opposition.  

The news at the time talked of a "fisheries ambassador" based on the fact that Jones knows the industry as he had a role with Sealord (a big NZ company). Many of us who work in this field do wonder at the time (and sometimes now too), what his role is.

Both made the news yesterday with James Movick, the head of FFA (Fisheries Forum Agency), as both are in Auckland at the present since the US treaty tuna negations are in place.

Here is transcript of what they had to say:

This morning I’m joined by New Zealand’s Pacific Economic Ambassador, Shane Jones, and Director General of the Pacific Islands Forum Fishing Agency, James Movick. Good morning to you both.

James Movick: Good morning.

If I could start with you, Mr Movick, you’ve been leading the negotiations to bring this treaty back to life. Have you got a deal this week?

Movick: No, no, we actually did not come here with the expectation of reaching a final deal here, but rather this meeting will focus on setting the new structure of the treaty to go into the future to serve the new needs of the Pacific Islander community in particular.

So a ways to go there. Mr Ambassador, in layman’s terms—

Shane Jones: Good morning.

Good morning. Can you explain to us what’s the problem? Is it overfishing, too many boats? Spell it out for us.

Jones: Well, in a nutshell, the Pacific Island leaders want to generate income from this precious resource. They’ve got pressures on their national budgets. They’ve mandated James, who leads the peak body in the Pacific, to find a way that they can sustain earnings. The industry is saying the value of tuna has crashed in the international commodity markets. They can’t match the price that’s demanded, so common ground has to be found. And if it’s not found, the fear that exists is that a lot of these key species will become biologically non-viable.

So they’ve selling days – the amount of days that you can fish – to the highest bidder, so have you got too many boats out there in the water in the Pacific?

Jones: Well, as James would possibly correct me, to the best of my knowledge, there’s about 300 boats – purse seiners. These are monstrous vessels. And we could probably catch the current amount of fish with fewer boats, but these are boats that are licensed and fishing in Pacific sovereign waters. They’re very rarely in New Zealand waters, so the sovereign leaders of those Pacific Island nation states need to strike a balance between the zest for revenue and providing an example that if you fish too much, if you have too much capacity, there’ll be no fish left.

Mr Movick, who’s doing the overfishing? There’s a lot of concern about the Asian nations, and, actually, you’ve raised that yourself, haven’t you?

Movick: I think everybody’s engaging in overfishing to some extent, that they’re participating in the fishery, but I think we need to understand the scale of the problem perhaps a bit better. It’s clear that the overfishing that is occurring is occurring on the big-eye tuna stocks, which is a very small component of the overall tuna catches in the region. And it’s the concern over that which is causing all the other current concern. But the problem there is that the bigeye tuna is taken both by large super-frozen long-line vessels, which are primarily foreign – Asian-owned – which operate primarily on the high seas, and they’re also taken by purse seine vessels, which tend to fish within the exclusive economic zones of the Pacific Island countries. In seeking to adopt the appropriate management measures, both of these fleets have to concede something – have to reduce their level of fishing. And the question then is – in what way and to what extent does each do this? But we need to recognise that any reduction in the effort that is taken by purse seiners in the exclusive economic zones of the Pacific Island countries does have economic consequences to them. And so what we are saying is that while we are prepared to make reductions in that catch, the distant water, foreign-owned fleets need to make reductions in that alternative sector and any disproportionate burden of conservation that is borne by the small island states needs to be compensated.

All right. Mr Ambassador, you’re particularly worried about the Chinese, aren’t you, the Chinese fleet?

Jones: You know, the current treaty negotiations relate to the Americans. Some of the American vessels, as James would agree with, are actually Taiwanese vessels, but they fly an American flag. And I’m the sort of person that I’m really not into stigmatisation, and the real challenge is that when you have subsidies, and New Zealand’s had a proud record over the years of challenging subsidies – we’re one of the last fishing nations that doesn’t have subsidies – subsidisation leads to distortionary outcomes.

So who’s subsidising their boats and to what extent?

Jones: Well, there’s a subsidy inside the American Tuna Treaty worth $21 million. There’s subsidies association, I think, with the Taiwanese, the Koreans and the Chinese as well.

Movick: The European Union.

Jones: The European Union. And little old New Zealand, our biggest fishing company is just a part of the Pacific Sanford’s. They had a proud record there. We don’t have subsidies, but unless you challenge subsidisation, I fear that people will continue fishing after it’s actually economically not viable to do so. But if you have a subsidy and your fuel costs are underwritten, you don’t need to face the full costs of your activity.

So is that pushing New Zealand tuna boats out of the game?

Jones: The reality is that Sanford’s have already announced that their four boats are gone. One of them’s been sold to the final remaining totara tree of the fishing industry in New Zealand in the Pacific, and it’s Peter Talley. He’s the only one still up there.

And the reality is the growth where the new boats are coming from, that’s China, isn’t it?

Jones: I don’t have the exact numbers, but let’s face it – throughout the Pacific, where Pacific nations and even me in my current role, we’ve learnt to accept that the mix of the economy has changed. China does have an interest in the Pacific. New Zealand is actually working in a JV project in Rarotonga at this very moment with the Chinese, trying to upgrade sanitation and water supply. And my role really is to find a common way to work with these fishing nations without alienating our neighbours, because they are a permanent reality of the modern Pacific.

So who is going to tell China and some of these Asian nations that they’re being irresponsible in their approach?

Movick: We have been, and we’ve raised our concern with China about the introduction of the hundred or so vessels into the Southern albacore long-line fishery over the last two years. And we’ve encouraged them work with the Pacific Island countries so that those fleets can work with the island countries and bring some of the benefits to the island countries by shore-side offloading, processing as well as working with Pacific Island fishing operators, so that some of the subsidy benefit that they do enjoy perhaps might also be enjoyed by those other participants, the Pacific Islanders.

Because the point is, isn’t it, the resource belongs to these pacific nations, so they are well within their rights, aren’t they, to sell it to the highest bidder? That’s their prerogative.

Movick: Of course. Of course.

Do you agree with that, Mr Jones?

Jones: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, these are sovereign island nations. And the only cautionary note I always strike, having come and seen the ups and lows of our own fishing industry, is that never let the pursuit of revenue eclipse the importance of sustainability. Don’t ever let that happen. We’ve had that problem in New Zealand.

But doesn’t it just come down to bad luck for American and New Zealand? It’s their right to sell it – they’re selling it to the highest bidder. Who are you to tell them otherwise?

Oh, look, yeah, I mean, you see Sanfords, a well-known Kiwi company, has said, “Look, I can’t match the price. I can’t make money. I’ve out of Dodge.” 

Okay. Mr Movick, you’ve spent the last week negotiating with the US and other countries over this, and it’s a short time after we found out that New Zealand is spying on countries in the Pacific. Was there much concern about that during these discussions? Was it raised?

Movick: No, it was certainly not raised openly, although yes, a few people would make comments on the side and seek clarification.

What sort of comments, Mr Movick?

Well, ‘Is this true, and does this make any difference?’ Quite frankly, we’ve always taken the view, many of us on the secretariat side, that a lot of the information that is being discussed internally does get shared. It’s done by everybody in the course in the course of normal diplomatic contact.

Shared or spied on?

I would say to some extent, you share information, if you’re trying to reach an agreement with anybody, particularly where you have a common interest. And this is not just with New Zealand, but quite a number of the Pacific Island countries as well.

But do you think your organisation is being spied on? Because we’ve heard that spying is not just for security reasons; it’s for economic reasons. And here you’ve got a big country, the US, wanting to do a deal. Do you think you’re being spied on?

Movick: We take active precautions. We presume that others, particularly the distant-water fishing nations, will try to get access to the data that we have at the agency and what we are doing, so we have very strict information security rules in order to try to ensure that we protect against electronic surveillance of our systems. But on the other hand, a lot of the scientific data that we deal with is open and very transparent, and we want to encourage that and keep it that way.

So Mr Movick assumes he’s being spied on, Ambassador. Does that concern you?

Jones: Without wanting to become the Willy Moon of your show today, you need to take that question to someone like Minister Finlayson. The ambassador could speak on a topic too foreign. Look, when I go to fishing plants, people are talking to me about fillets and loins. They never talk to me about spying.

But does it make your job more difficult?

Jones: I haven’t encountered any static in that regard, but I would say that I’m dealing at a very sort of gut level in the fishing industry in the Pacific.

The devastation by Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu

I work there many times over the years.... and while we could discuss their commitment to good vessels and fisheries management, they are good people and Pam hit them REALLY hard as you can see form the assessment below.

If you have an opportunity to help in any way, please do so.

Kunlun detained with 180 Tonnes of illegally harvested toothfish

Further to my last post related to this topic, the Kunlun arrived in Phuket last Monday and attempted to offload what it claimed was groper. Previously registered to Equatorial Guinea, it was falsely reflagged as an Indonesian vessel and renamed Taichan. Bangkok-based New Zealand officials, police and customs officers arrived on the island soon after and have been working with Thai counterparts to hold the boat and its illegal haul.

Its understood one of the heads of the notorious Spanish syndicate Vidal Armadores also travelled to Phuket after it became clear the boat was to be detained.

The NZ government worked quietly behind the scenes after the navy was slammed for failing to board two of a fleet of three vessels spotted poaching in Antarctic waters in January. After tracking the Kunlun to Thailand, they alerted officials and passed on evidence collected by the HMNZS Wellington patrol.

Meanwhile, recent raids in Spain on Vidal Armadores-linked companies came after pressure from Wellington. Operation Sparrow - an investigation into alleged links with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities marked the first time Spain enforced a new fisheries law.

The rust-eaten Yongding and Songhua are still operating in the Southern Ocean.

The shell companies behind this vessels is Stanley Management Incorporated, a Panama company and Sucre Arias Reyes, law firm, that he said provides a front for boats fishing illegally fishing. 

The vessels had no fishing gear on board, so it could have been dumped as a way to hide the "gun" for the work. While the vessels is designed and geared as a longlines, it has been operation as bottom gilleneter as well,  (See below for the differences)

Thailand on their side is not due to pass domestic fishing laws until June, which left authorities with few legal options. But they'd declared the catch as groper, not toothfish and It is an offence to declare your fished something different to what it is. Misreporting is a component of Unreported, one of the "U" in IUU.

Separately, the boat had gone in there identifying itself as the Tiachan, flying the Indonesian flag, and it was easy to establish with the Indonesians that they didn't own it. So, it is technically stateless, giving the Thai authorities a facet to keep the vessel held, so the next step is to confiscate the catch, so they don't get any benefit from their misdeeds.In the meantime Vidal Amadores have had their people on the ground trying to get their boat sprung.

All 36 people on board the vessel – the Peruvian captain, four Spaniards and 31 Indonesians – have yet to face any charges, but are under watch onboard the ship. One Spaniard was removed from the ship before it was seized due to self-inflicted wounds over alleged family issues.

So the plot thickens. 

Finally, Spain seems to take action against rogue fishing companies

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Environment (MAGRAMA) is inspecting the headquarters of several companies for alleged link with vessels included in the list of illegal fishing in the Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR).

Orgullo de la flota

Operation Sparrow (in cooperation with Interpol)  is developing in companies located in the province of A Coruña, after several months of investigation. These companies seem to the the beneficial owners of the Songhua, Kunlun and Yongding that were spotted by the NZ in January this year.

The fish inspection services are dealing with the examination of numerous physical and electronic documentation.

The operation could lead to the opening of different sanctioning procedures on maritime fishing.

For their part, the fish inspection services are responsible for developing complex investigations in collaboration with partner nations in the fight against illegal fishing, such as New Zealand.

The implementation of the Council Regulation 1005/2008 the European Union (EU) to prevent and deter illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, prohibits national community members to have links with vessels listed for illegal fishing.

Recommendations for a Global Framework to Ensure the Legality and Traceability of Wild-Caught Fish Products

In November of 2014, I wrote about the recommendations provided by a Expert Panel on Legal and Traceable Fish Products, on which I serve as a member.

I'm happy to announce that the final report is available to be downloaded at solutions-network.org/seafood (a 30mb version) or from here (same report but on 5mb version for those on Island based internet)

The Expert Panel was formed by WWF to help envision pragmatic solutions to the challenges of seafood traceability, and to promote action to prevent illegal fish products from entering supply chains.  With illegal fishing still driving overfishing in too many fisheries, there is a continuing need for better coordinated business systems and government policies to put affordable and effective solutions within reach.

This report is unusual for two reasons.  First, it represents the thinking of an international and interdisciplinary panel representing leading seafood businesses, environmental NGOs, food science institutes, and independent experts.  Second, it recommends pragmatic cutting edge solutions that combine regulatory and private sector approaches at both national and global scales.  

But the intention of this report is not to "provide all of the answers."  Rather, the report is meant to serve as a reference point, and to promote expanded engagement and dialogue among industry actors, civil society stakeholders, and policymakers.  

The challenges addressed in this report are real and urgent.  I encourage you to take a solid look at its recommendations, and to join the growing international conversation about how to make seafood 100% traceable to legal fishing activities. 

Those in the Pacific Islands would recognise what was my modest contribution o the report :-)

Back in PNG working with the catch certification system

I have been coming to work in Papua New Guinea since 1999, and even if I have seen incredible changes in Port Moresby and parts of the country… as soon as you get out of the main town, it still strikes me how beautiful and “raw” the place still is.

Paper instruction of how to work on computers... thanks due diligence!

Nowhere else that I have been are “yesterday and tomorrow” so close.

Let me explain: I’m in an office working on operating procedures aimed to produce the results of information being live fed into databases directly from fishing vessels via on board connectivity or tethering devices where fisheries observers do all their data gathering via apps in tablets, which can then be followed up during unloading by port monitors that confirm in their own tablets the catch composition and volumes, initiating that way a complete catch traceability to the point of export. The companies are required to log in inventory movements, so all catch is included.

None of the EU countries I have ever worked in has anything like this.

I’m doing this work with my local colleagues whose parents may not had the chance to have an education and traditional believes (snubbedly called sorcery) still remain a huge element of daily life. For the observers and catch documentation crew I’m working with, the tablets and internet are a basic tool, for some of their parents, this is not even a concept.

One of the guys I work, has to do 6 to 8hs by open boat to get back to his village to visit their family, as there are no roads or airports in the region... no other person I know and work a equal level with me has a story like that.

I see a crew at the side of the road digging to put in fibre optic cables, while a group of highland ladies that may not have electricity or roads at home walk by… I see a local with feet that have never been on a shoe, walking among reddish beetle nut spit besides the latest 100000 dollars worth Toyota Landcruiser.

What other society made up of more than 780 cultures could come to the tenuous concept of nationhood (with independence in 1975) and face challenges like this?

None that I know, and I will never know… as there is no other place like PNG, simple as that.

The Lae Catch Certification team earning a session of PNG's best pizza as thank you for trusting me with their work... (They are the responsible, I just advice! ). Coolest crew around.

People tell me: “I heard is really dangerous”… but so are Australia, China or the US, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time… at least here you could find reasons behind based on the impact that such an accelerated rate of cultural transition has had in some sectors of society… which cannot be said about those other countries.

I go for a 7 km run around 6am, and yes there are potholes, rubbish and general lack of maintenance… same as in other "new countries" but then I cross with 30-40 random people, and everyone says  hello and smiles… my running shoes may be worth a week of their wages… and I have never felt threatened.

Yes, independent tourism is difficult, because infrastructure is scarce, moving along can be expensive … but if you really want to see a place like no other on earth and that will stay in your brain forever. Aim here, is beyond unique.

Polynesia "embraces" satellite tracking of illegal fishing

Much has been made on the media of the “embracement” by some pacific countries (The Polynesian Leadership Group) of the Eyes on the Sea utility.

And as my colleague Tim Adams from FFA in Honiara commented in a specialist forum:

Is nice to see "Eyes on the Sea" finally acknowledge that FFA member countries already (which include all the countries in the group except French Polynesia) have this capability in place. And we have yet to see what additional functionality this new initiative will provide. If it does add something useful then it will be extremely welcome, but everything that has been described so far - AIS, linked vessel information databases, flagging of vessels-of-interest, etc. - is already part of the existing system stretching across the Pacific Islands region. As well as assisting national fisheries authorities it also informs multi-country collaborative surveillance operations. 

Unlike the Pew Charitable Trusts, FFA not normally advertise our activities in the global press. We're trying to catch offenders, not just deter them. However, if there is a danger of wheels being unnecessarily reinvented then a higher level of awareness may be necessary. Don't get me wrong - sometimes more wheels are necessary to help spread a heavy load. But they work best if they are all pointing in the same direction.

 French Polynesia and New Caledonia have domestic regulations that require all fishing vessels - including unlicenced vessels transiting the EEZ - to provide EEZ entry and exit reports, including details of weight and type of fish on board. This reporting requirement does not interfere with the right of passage across the EEZ. However the information improves boarding and inspection efficiency, since they are able to zero in on the vessels which appear on the surveillance picture, but haven't reported, and deprioritise those who have. 

All WCPFC members (implicitly including all fishing vessels in the western and central Pacific) are aware of these regulations, which were notified to the Commission several years ago. It has apparently been accepted that foreign vessels that are entering the EEZ for the legitimate purpose of transit have nothing to hide, and that the provision of this border-crossing information actually helps protect them from hassle. Anyone who doesn't report immediately becomes a vessel of interest. 

France, with the support of FFA member countries, attempted to persuade the WCPFC membership to enact compatible domestic regulations in 2010, but this was not agreed by the entire membership. FFA members subsequently included this requirement (for all foreign fishing vessels entering the EEZ) in their harmonised "Minimum Terms and Conditions for Access" (as MTC 12), and this is progressively being included in national legislative updates. 

One thing WCPFC did agree to was enhanced "EEZ boundary crossing reporting" requirements for vessels accessing the "Eastern High Seas Pocket" enclosed by the French Polynesia, Cook Islands and the Kiribati Line Islands EEZ boundaries (WCPFC CMM 2010-02).

Reports by LICENCED fishing vessels have always been part of the system - time and place of entry or exit, fish on board, observer_ID etc as well as daily catch/effort (logsheet) recording and VMS (track) reporting. It is the application of this catch-on-board reporting requirement to UNLICENCED vessels transiting the EEZ that is relatively new (although automatic VMS transponder reporting, for all fishing vessels on the FFA register and WCPFC list that are present in the EEZ, has been in place for some time).

A good story of people working in the fishing industry in the Pacific

By chance I came across this article by Matthew Dornan (Research Fellow at the Development Policy Centre). As I always struggle to find good stories on the potential positive impact fisheries can have, i will transcribe it here. Furthermore, two other issue I like: 1) Is about fisheries observers, one of the hardest jobs in the industry and a bedrock of fisheries management that gets very little recognition, and 2) is that infers what small disadvantaged countries can do when they go beyond relaying on foreign assistance.

Labour and fish: making the most of the Pacific’s tuna resource

I met Ali on the flight from Suva to Funafuti. He was on his way home to Tuvalu from Korea, having completed four months as a fisheries observer on a Korean tuna fishing vessel. Sitting across from Ali was another observer on his way home. He had been away for longer (five months), on a Spanish vessel staffed by Ecuadorian crew, and was flying back from Kirimati island, Kiribati.

Ali is one of 50 Tuvaluan fisheries observers whose job it is to monitor the activities of vessels from distant water fishing nations. These vessels pay for the privilege of fishing in Tuvalu’s waters. As one of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) – along with Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, Federated States of Micronesia, Solomon Islands, Republic of Marshall Islands, Nauru, and Palau – Tuvalu’s license fees are set as part of the vessel day scheme. Vessels pay for the days in which they are allowed to fish, with (tradable) days allocated to PNA member countries according to an agreed formula. Fees were US$6,000 per day in 2013 (triple the charge in 2009), and are expected to average US$8,000 in 2015.

The vessel day scheme is controversial in some circles. PNA have effectively closed fishing in the ‘high seas’ pockets of the international waters that lie between member states, by mandating that any vessel that fishes in PNA waters must abstain from fishing in the high seas. Given that about 60 per cent of tuna from the western and central Pacific ocean is caught in the exclusive economic zone of PNA members, the majority of vessels abide by PNA rules.

By flexing its collective muscle, the PNA ‘tuna cartel’ – which is the source of over 50 per cent of the world’s tuna cannery supply – has been able to generate significant benefits for members. Access fees or their equivalent (in benefits from domestic processing or aid) were an estimated US$218 million in 2013 and US$91 million in 2009, after the vessel day scheme was introduced, compared with US$60 million, US$67 million, and US$71 million in 1999, 2006, and 2007, before the scheme was introduced.

Such revenues are very significant in microstates like Tuvalu. Revenue from fisheries in Tuvalu reached an all-time high in 2013, measuring A$18.2 million, or 55 per cent of domestic revenue. This revenue, which admittedly is unusually high, was greater than the A$11.3 million received as grants from development partners – placing in question the appropriateness of labelling Tuvalu a MIRAB economy.

Observation of the efforts of tuna fisheries is also a source of employment for Tuvaluans. Fifty observers may not sound like many, but in a country with a formal sector of only 2,000 workers, observers make up 2.5 per cent of the formal workforce. That makes fisheries observation as significant as the mining industry [pdf] in Australia, in terms of its share of formal sector employment.

There is more that PNA members could do to maximise the benefits from tuna. Past efforts to develop domestic processing of tuna were without success, and despite ongoing efforts, should not be trialled again (with PNG being an exception given its ability to achieve economies of scale). But there is scope to use Pacific island labour on foreign fishing fleets.

A requirement that 10 per cent of the crew on purse seine vessels be from PNA member countries has already been agreed to in principle by PNA fisheries ministers as part of the Bikenibeu Declaration in 2009 (this figure would rise to 20 per cent over five years). However, implementation has been stalled in the past by opposition from some countries, which do not have maritime training institutes where nationals could be trained to work on tuna fishing vessels. Last November, PNA ministers reiterated their support for such a measure, which would begin in 2016, and would include the option of paying a waiver fee for vessels unable to find local crew. Details on how that scheme will function, including waiver fees, should emerge at the next PNA meeting, in two weeks’ time.

Skills development will clearly be important for maximising the benefit of any local crewing requirements. In the case of Tuvalu, the maritime training institute could offer training appropriate for tuna fisheries, rather than their current focus on freight vessels (employment on which is becoming harder to find, given competition from countries like the Philippines). It is not difficult to picture a tuna fishing industry with large numbers of Tuvaluans, or I-Kiribati, working on vessels in PNA waters, generating employment opportunities and remittances in their respective countries. The Director of Fisheries in Tuvalu recently estimated that a 10 per cent local crewing requirement could lead to employment for 900 Tuvaluans; a massive 45 per cent of the current domestic workforce in the formal sector (and 9 per cent of the entire population).

Tuna, the only significant economic resource in countries like Tuvalu, would therefore not only provide resource rents (in the form of license fees) for government, but significant employment and income earning opportunities for Tuvaluan workers.

Government-paid observers, like Ali, would continue to be important. Without them, the government would be unable to independently verify the fishing activities of foreign vessels. But employment in fisheries for Tuvaluans would not be limited to observers.

The most difficult part of Ali’s job? Communication. Four months on a boat where none of the crew, except the Captain, speak English (or Tuvaluan), is a long time. When we said our goodbyes, Ali was about to spend two weeks in Tuvalu with his family. After that, he was to board another foreign vessel, for another four months of watching people fish.

Catch Certification Schemes as a way to combat IUU fishing

Trade-based measures consist of actions directed toward the movements of products of IUU fishing and may include banning products from trade if found to be undermining fishery management regulations, or rejecting individual shipments which lack documentation required to establish their legal provenance. No proof of legality no trade… quite simple... in principle.

only part of the picture

Monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) tools such as lists of vessels authorised to fish, high seas boarding and inspection programmes, observer programmes, and vessel monitoring systems have recently been bolstered by the creation of a variety of vessel blacklists by Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) and individual countries, these tools are designed to prevent IUU fishing before or as it occurs.

Downstream measures, designed to penalize products of IUU fishing activities not caught at sea, have also been developed in the form of port State and trade-based measures such as Catch Certification Schemes (CCS). 

Port State measures consist of actions directed toward vessels in port. These may consist of refusing port access and services to vessels believed to have violated regulations or requiring prior notice and clearance of all landings from a given fishery as a matter of course. 

The legally-binding Port State Measures was agreed a few years ago by a group of 91 countries and now awaits ratification by 25 States before entering into force, however there are some serious concerns in terms of the disproportionate burden that many of those obligations impose in least developed countries. These initiative complements other ones like the potential development of a global record of fishing vessels and a permanent IMO# for fishing vessels. 

RFMOs have provided ground for both trade bans and the development of catch and trade documentation schemes for some key species as well as the EU IUU regulation, requiring documentation proving the legality of the capture, for imports of all wild-caught, non-ornamental marine fish, and you all know my reservations about it.

The Pacific has been talking about this for a few years now, but complexities on the understanding, the fear of even more disproportionate burden, and the interference of some DWFN, plus the cost associated to the development of a electronic system have made advances very slow.

This week, I’m back in PNG working with them on issues around the EU IUU Catch Certification, but as well taking a bigger and wider approach on this issue, as many initiatives (as I posted before) are coinciding and gelling into a workable system.

A Catch Certification Scheme (CCS) ties up fisheries information management systems with MCS and trade, hence it is an incredible powerful tool, that equally needs an incredible amount of work to be a good tool and not a headache.

Today we agreed with a few of the most influential people in the region that have a role into these complex fields in a set of principles that will be the basis of a pacific wide CCS. We advanced in the last couple of days more than some former efforts advances in a few years, which is awesome!

And is just to show how good is to have good people, regional champions (like PNG), fresh ideas, a common factor approach and committed driving principles. I’m really proud and happy of what we achieved today! 

If you want to understand more about Catch Documentation Schemes, this report by Shelley Clarke for the WCPFC is one of the best I know.

Traceability of Fishery Products in different countries

This week I finished for FAO a study on the traceability systems of 10 countries... I believed I knew about traceability... but doing this study, made me realise that I was only scratching the surface...

Cool image by the lovely people at fishwise.org 

Traceability is not a trivial term, and the systematic analysis of the country reports shows that there is a lot of confusion and inconsistencies in the meaning, scope, legal status, implementation capacity and control of traceability systems. 

Traceability systems implementation was catalysed by market access requirements; which initially were the domain of the EU health certification and later on (after 2010) supplemented by the EU catch certification. However, most of the countries analysed have not legislated and standardised traceability as a requirement. Furthermore there seems to be little interaction in between the health CA and the fisheries CA in terms of their assessment of it.

It seems that efforts towards the implementation of traceability systems in the analysed countries and across countries have not been supported in an interdisciplinary and standardised way. Ensuring traceability through the seafood production chain can be only accomplished by careful planning, taking the time to gain consensus among the operators and authorities. In order to gain trust, the traceability system in place must meet the set standards. 

Traceability per se is difficult to achieve with little money, little human resources and lack of political will. It would be good if smaller steps are taken, steps that together will lead to implementing, at the end, effective traceability: clear definition of traceability in respective legislation, implementation of traceability requirements within companies and afterwards between companies, following in the beginning the one-step-up, one-step-down approach and afterwards moving to the integrated approach.

These initial steps should be defined by risk and start with the fisheries with higher IUU fishing and food safety risk profiles, but in a holistic way, so that other fisheries can be incorporated in the systems at a later point. 

We believe that FAO, as in other aspect of fisheries and seafood production, in its unique position can lead this standardization efforts by expanding on the work initiated by the “Draft Best Practice Guidelines on Traceability”  as requested by the thirteenth session of the Sub-Committee on Fish Trade (COFI:FT) in Bergen, Norway, 24–28 February 2014. 

I cannot yet disclose the report, but a good introductory read on traceability for seafood products (in the US) in the this "white paper" by my friend Mariah Boyle form FishWise. They lend me the nice image that I put in this blog and in the cover of the report.

US Congress Report on Improving International Fisheries Management

The US Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Reauthorization Act of 2006 (MSRA) acknowledged the need for international cooperation to address fishing activities that have a deleterious effect on sustainable fisheries worldwide. The US Congress directed the Executive Branch to strengthen its leadership in international fisheries management and enforcement, particularly with regard to illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and unsustainable fishing practices such as bycatch of protected living marine resources (PLMRs).

The US Congress requires the Secretary of Commerce every two years to identify countries whose fishing vessels were engaged in these activities, and to consult with those countries on improving their fisheries management and enforcement practices.

This is an important document that influences countries engaging in IUU fishing. I was a bit disappointed this year that only Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Nigeria, Nicaragua, and Portugal were identified, and Belize (that just came out of the EU's red card list), Costa Rica, Ghana, Guatemala, Spain identified as Countries “of Interest” but not Identified.

The definition of IUU fishing for the purposes of implementing this particular legislation is largely focused on flag state compliance with RFMO conservation measures, to which the US is involved. So that may explain the absence of as e.g. China, Taiwan) and Korea.

Again, these documents, may not have a direct impact... is not that that the US stop buying from these countries... and while "name and shame" has limited impact, is better that nothing!

The report can be downloaded from here

Lifetime Voices... Cook Islands elders talk about the changes in their fisheries

This documentary titled ‘A Lifetime of Change’ was part of the Rauti Para project carried out last year throughout most the Cook Islands, which was co-financed by the SPC EU Global Climate Change Alliance: Pacific Small Islands States project and the SRIC CC program.

The documentary is based on the changes in our marine resources that Cook Islands elders have noticed within their lifetime. 

The message of this documentary is clear and  resource managers, need to consider it before placing economical gains ahead of people's livelihood and culture

Damanzaihao (ex Lafayette) in the SPRFMO IUU Vessels List.

In late September las year I wrote about this Oil-tanker/Fishing Boat lingering in the south pacific under Peruvian flag. I'm happy to report that it has been included into the is on the final list of vessels marked as engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing drafted by the SPRFMO's (South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation) technical and compliance committee. Also on the list is Avrora, (Aurora), now  Russian-flagged trawler previously known as Pacific Conqueror under Peruvian flag, whose unlicensed activities I also mention in that post.

Length × Breadth: 228.61m × 32.24m... the smaller one is just a big fishing boat.

Last year Damanzaihao carried the name Lafayette, and was flying a Russian and then a Mongolian flag. It passed through New Zealand's exclusive economic zone. Later, in international waters east of the North Island, it met upwith four other fishing vessels and a fleet tanker. While the Aurora has been listed as an IUU vessel because of "fishing in the SPRFMO Convention Area without authorisation (air photographs from New Zealand and prolonged unauthorised presence in the SPRFMO Area (evidence from Chile)".

As I reported, the direct owner is listed as Sustainable Fishing Resources, with the email address belonging to the domain of the Peruvian fishmeal producer Copeinca, bought by China Fishery in late 2013).  China Fishery Group, is a Bermuda registered fishing company belonging to the Hong Kong-listed Pacific Andes International Holdings. And  Pacific Andes is a well know and extremely powerful mafia type Frozen Fish conglomerate with long time IUU allegations, as the linked OECD report from 2005 already shows.  

The owners said it was "disappointed" to be on the list. "We believe that inclusion on the IUU list is out of proportion with the minor nature of the allegation against the vessel" the company said, in a statement. "This support vessel has no capability to catch fish. The allegation made related only to the provision of food, water and fuel to authorized catcher vessels prior to the date on which the support vessel was authorized by the Peruvian government". Transshipment, however, is classified as a fishing activity by the SPRFMO.

Unfortunately Peru (a country I work with its medium size industry and like a lot- see here and here)  fought "very hard" to oppose the committee's decision. The country attended the meeting in Auckland with lawyers representing Pacific Andes and a minister.  However, until such time that acceptable sanctions have been put against the vessel, the ships should remain on the list, but surely what is "aceptable" for Peru may not be the same that aceptable for other countries... particularly in terms of the ingraining that these "players" seem to have in the Peruvian regulatory system, I reported these issues in early 2011 and 4 years later not much has changed.

The SPRFMO is a multinational fisheries management organization that came into force in 2012 in a bid to fend off a collapse of Pacific mackerel that has seen the stock fall from 30 million tonnes to just three million in two decades.

For a vessel to be removed from the IUU list, SPRRMO stipulates that the vessel's flag state needs to show it has adopted measures so that the vessel conforms with SPRFMO rules and that it will continue to effectively monitor and control the vessel's operations in the SPRFMO area. The flag state also needs to show it has "taken effective action in response to the IUU fishing activities in question including prosecution and/or imposition of sanctions of adequate severity". Alternatively to the sanctions, it can show that the vessel has changed owners, and that the previous owner "no longer has any legal, financial or real interests in the vessel or exercises control over it".

Under SPRFMO rules, members and cooperating non-contracting parties agree to take "all necessary non-discriminatory measures" available to them to sanction IUU vessels.
These should include removing the vessels' fishing permits for resources managed by the SPRFMO, to prevent them from fishing but also transshipping, refueling, carrying cargo or otherwise supporting fishing vessels. Sanctions should also seek to prohibit IUU vessels from entering to the country's port, "except in force majeure" or from being chartered.

Members should also refuse to grant their flag to vessels of the IUU list, except if there is sufficient evidence to determine this will not result in IUU fishing, while prohibiting imports, landings, transshipments, processing and purchasing of species covered by the convention from any IUU vessel. Finally, the rules say members agree to collect and exchange information to search for, control and prevent false import/export certificates for species covered by the SPRFMO from vessels on the list.

As I insist in many of my posts, IUU fishing is a really complex issue that goes from the the type of hook and the size of fish all the way to beneficial ownership, and implicating a variety of issues from illegal immigration, human trafficking, drug trafficking to tax evasion. And all this is just beyond the impact on fisheries management.

Sources here and here

The murkiness of Beneficial Ownership

Beneficial ownership is enjoyed by anyone who has the benefits of ownership of a Security (finance) or property, and yet does not nominally own the asset itself. In Fisheries it a more diffuse concept, but it comes down to who ultimate benefits of the profits of the fishing activities, because is the one that did the investment.

In November 2012 the EU's DG MARE published a list of selected third countries that the Commission considered as “possible of being identified as non-cooperating third countries pursuant to IUU Regulation” pursuant to Council Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008. The Commission Decision identified Belize, Cambodia, Fiji, Guinea, Panama, Sri Lanka, Togo and Vanuatu as such potential non-cooperating third countries. 

At the time, Trygg Mat (a Norwegian NGO that unfortunately seems to have ceased operations) conducted a brief analysis of the fishing vessels flagged to these countries and what companies are involved as owners or operators of them.

Their results were quite revealing, as you can see:

Number of vessels where EU companies own or play an operational part 

Recently, Sri Lanka (the only one without EU players) was declared a non cooperating country (red carded) and exports embargoed. Vanuatu, Fiji, Togo and Panama went back to green. Belize went to red and then came back to green.

I would love to know what are the figures now.

IUU fishing is a really complex issue, and while the EU has its anti IUU regulations and the catch certification scheme, the finances behind it are way beyond the controls of the certification and how good are some countries in terms of their Flag State responsibilities.

Dodgy Fishing Vessels Stories (a perfect example)

It never ceases to amaze me the utter “dodgines” of some vessel operators… and it also saddens me to think how many of those are around and we don’t about them… here a sad example dug out by my colleagues at SIF (Stop Illegal Fishing) that operates in Southern Africa.

An Omani flagged tuna long-liner with the name NAHAM-4, with the call sign A4DK6, was detained in Cape Town in March 2013. The vessel's agent had been granted a permit to allow the vessel to undergo repairs and discharge fish in Cape Town. Once in port the South African Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) made a port inspection that revealed inconsistencies between the amount of fish held on-board and the supporting documentation.

This led to an investigation into the vessel by South African authorities that was supported by research from Triton Naval Architects. This research revealed that between 2010 and 2013 four different vessels had been operating with the name NAHAM-4 and that the vessel held in Cape Town was significantly larger than the NAHAM-4 that was authorised to fish in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) Convention area.

As a result of the South African investigation, the Omani registered vessel owner Al-Naham and its representatives, Wu Hai Tao and Wu Hai Ping (unsurprisingly Taiwanese citizens), were charged and convicted on seven accounts relating to contraventions of the Marine Living Resources Act and IOTC's Conservation and Management Measures.

The fish that was on-board was forfeited to South Africa and auctioned, and it is anticipated that the vessel will also be auctioned in the near future. According to the Muscat Daily, the owners of the NAHAM-4, Al-Naham, have abandoned the vessel, leaving the South Africa agent Trade Ocean with debts amounting to USD 100,000. The agent is reportedly now taking legal action in Taiwan against the owners of Al-Naham who are Taiwanese citizens to recover their financial losses.

In parallel to the South African investigations, the regional FISH-i Africa Task Force, with the support of Stop Illegal Fishing, FACT and the Secretariat of the IOTC, were also investigating the NAHAM-4 during their routine crosschecking of vessels operating in the Western Indian Ocean. Comparisons of photographs of vessels bearing the name NAHAM-4, including photographs taken in late 2013 in Cape Town, showed significant differences in the structure of the vessels and inconsistencies between the call signs painted on the vessels.

In one example the name NAHAM-4 was marked on a vessel alongside the call sign A4DK5, this call sign is officially recorded with IOTC as the call sign for the fishing vessel NAHAM-3. This photographic analysis also supported the South African conclusion that the vessel arrested in Cape Town is not the vessel that is recorded in the IOTC authorised vessel list by Oman. However the NAHAM-3 was been hijacked in Somalia. 

Further analysis by FISH-i Africa disclosed that the previous name of the vessel held in Cape Town was DER HORNG 569, a fishing vessel owned by Der Wei Fishery Co. Ltd. of Taiwan. DER HORNG 569 was flagged to Belize and recent communication with the authorities in Belize revealed that the DER HORNG 569 and a sister vessel the DER WEI 686 had been reported as stolen (!?) by the owner Der Wei Fishery Co. Ltd. in early 2009. Following this, the DER HORNG 569 was de-flagged by Belize and since that time the flag State of this vessel has been unknown.  

FISH-i Africa has not been able to find any official records or documentation tracing the DER HORNG 569 since the vessel was removed from the Belize register, including no record of the re-naming of the DER HORNG 569 to the NAHAM-4. As the name NAHAM-4 is already in use by another vessel, it may suggest that the Taiwanese owned and Omani registered company Al-Naham re-named the vessel after it was reported stolen by the previous owners.

During the FISH-i Africa investigation it emerged that Al-Naham, the company owning the arrested NAHAM-4, use the same postal address as the Oman based company Seas Tawariq Co. LLC in the IOTC list of authorised vessels. Tawariq Co. LLC was the owner of the infamous IUU fishing vessel Tawariq 1 arrested and later confiscated by the United Republic of Tanzania in 2009. 

The case of NAHAM-4 is still ongoing but it already exemplifies the use of false identities to operate illegally. It demonstrates the complexity of illegal fishing and the daring and unethical behaviour that lies behind this crime. This case also shows that systematic information sharing and crosschecking, such as that taking place in the FISH-i Africa Task Force is greatly needed.

Stop Illegal Fishing urges the flag State of Oman to face the challenge of the NAHAM-4 and to act as a responsible and transparent flag State.

Original source and more here

The Fisheries Control Room

A lot of media coverage has been devoted in the last weeks to a new monitoring system developed by the Satellite Applications Catapult, a British government-backed innovation centre, in collaboration with Pew Charitable Trusts (an American research group) very active in the fisheries sector.

It just fell onto the truck....

In essence, it is a big-data project, pulling together and cross-checking information on tens of thousands of fishing boats operating around the world. At its heart is what its developers call a virtual watch room, which resembles the control centre for a space mission. A giant video wall displays a map of the world, showing clusters of lighted dots, each representing a fishing boat.

The data used to draw this map come from various sources, the most important of which are ships’ automatic identification systems (AIS). These are like the transponders carried by aircraft. They broadcast a vessel’s identity, position and other information to nearby ships and coastal stations, and also to satellites. An AIS is mandatory for all commercial vessels, fishing boats included, with a gross tonnage of more than 300 mt.

Such boats are also required, in many cases, to carry a second device, known as a VMS (vessel monitoring system). This transmits similar data directly to the authorities who control the waters in which the vessel is fishing, and carrying it is a condition of a boat’s licence to fish there. Enforcement of the AIS regime is patchy, and captains do sometimes have what they feel is a legitimate reason for turning it off, in order not to alert other boats in the area to profitable shoals. But the VMS transmits only to officialdom, so there can be no excuse for disabling it. Switching off either system will alert the watch room to potential shenanigans.

The watch room first filters vessels it believes are fishing from others that are not. It does this by looking at, for example, which boats are in areas where fish congregate. It then tracks these boats using a series of algorithms that trigger an alert if, say, a vessel enters a marine conservation area and slows to fishing speed, or goes “dark” by turning off its identification systems. Operators can then zoom in on the vessel and request further information to find out what is going on. Satellites armed with synthetic-aperture radar can detect a vessel’s position regardless of weather conditions. This means that even if a ship has gone dark, its fishing pattern can be logged. Zigzagging, for example, suggests it is long-lining for tuna. When the weather is set fair, this radar information can be supplemented by high-resolution satellite photographs. Such images mean, for instance, that what purports to be a merchant ship can be fingered as a transshipment vessel by watching fishing boats transfer their illicit catch to it.

As powerful as the watch room is, though, its success will depend on governments, fishing authorities and industry adopting the technology and working together. Those authorities need to make sure AIS and VMS systems are not just fitted, but are used correctly and not tampered with. This should get easier as the cost of the technology falls.

Enforcing the use of an IMO identification number that stays with a ship throughout its life, even if it changes hands or country of registration, is also necessary. An exemption for fishing boats ended in 2013, but the numbering is still not universally applied. Signatories to a treaty agreed in 2009, to make ports exert stricter controls on foreign-flagged fishing vessels, also need to act. Rogue Fishers seek out ports with lax regulations to land illegal catches.

One big problem is that technology can work both ways... Analyzing data from July 2012 to August 2014 Windward (a maritime analytics company)  found a mouldering culture of manipulation and deceit in the global maritime industry. They sorted the problems they uncovered into five categories all of which result in “distorting the maritime picture and with it the ability of decision makers to act on valid, reliable data.” The five major categories identified were:

1) Identity Fraud: They found that 1% of ships were transmitting false or stolen identifying marks (IMO numbers, unique numbers assigned to every vessel over a certain size). While this number might seem low, they drew the analogy to airport security, and that this was the equivalent to 1000 people travelling through an international airport using fake identification in a single day. This practice has increased by 30% in the past year.

2) Obscuring Destinations: 59% of vessels failed to report their next port of call.

3) ‘Going Dark’: This was the most common form of AI manipulation whereby a vessel simply turns off their AIS. Windward determined that over one quarter of the vessels worldwide are turning off their AIS at least 10% of the time. To ‘go dark’ operators must physically separate an AIS transmitter from its battery.

4) GPS Manipulation: Windward notes that “AIS transmitters do not provide GPS validation. Therefore, whatever positioning data is ‘fed’ into the device is transmitted as the vessel’s position, regardless of the ship’s actual position.” They recorded a dramatic 59% increase in GPS manipulation between mid- 2013 to mid-2014. Operators must physically manipulate the hardware of the AIS transmitter or physically connect the AIS to a computer and use special software to provide false GPS locations. One example given in an article in Wired noted how a vessels turned off its AIS off the south coast of Mexico, only to have its AIS signal reappear near Chile a short while later, and then in the middle of the Antarctic Continent.

5) Spoofing AIS: The AIS system can be hacked so that ‘ghost ships’ can be introduced where there are not vessels. The implications of all of these various manipulations of AIS are significant, and include threats to safety at sea, international security, undermining the ability to track vessels and monitor areas on the part of governments and other security and financial stakeholders in global maritime trade. IUU fishers are strongly incentivised to manipulate their AIS or to operate without AIS, either of which is illegal, frustrates the jobs of coast guards and law enforcements, and threatens maritime safety.

Hence, the technology to find out the "truth" has similar incentives for those not interested in the truth! As well as the issue that all this is quite costly.

The way to get clients!

One interesting idea for using the watch room is that major retailers and companies could employ its findings to protect their supply chains, and thus their reputations for not handling what are, in effect, stolen goods. Governments sometimes have reason to drag their feet about enforcing fisheries rules. Supermarkets, though, will generally want to be seen as playing by them. The watch room’s developers say they are already in discussions with a large European supermarket group to do just this.

The watch room will also allow the effective monitoring of marine reserves or no take zones around small island states that do not have the resources to do it for themselves. The first test of this approach could be to regulate a reserve of 836,000 square kilometres around the Pitcairn Islands group, a British territory in the middle of the South Pacific with only a few dozen inhabitants. The Pitcairn reserve, which may be set up later this year, will be one of the world’s largest marine sanctuaries. By proving that the watch room can keep an eye on such a remote site, its developers hope other places with similar requirements will be encouraged to get involved.

The watch-room system is, moreover, capable of enlargement as new information sources are developed. One such may be nanosats. These are satellites, a few centimetres across, that can be launched in swarms to increase the number of electronic eyes in the sky while simultaneously reducing costs. Closer to the surface, unmanned drones can do the same. The watch room, then, is a work in progress. But in the game of cat and mouse that enforcing fishing regulations has become, it will give the cat an important advantage.

Sources here and here

Not just illegal fishing

Not that i'm a assiduous reader of the Somali Agenda news site, but my friend Jorge Torrens has been working there with FAO for a while, and sent me this "jewel" that I quote below, in regards the potential ramifications of IUU fishing and Korea's ineptitude as a responsible Flag State, a plot from a movie develops including corruption, assassinations, British mercenaries and the lot, as you will read... 

Mogadishu, Somalia’s Auditor-General Nur Farah has spoken with the Voice of America’s Somali Service to explain the mystery surrounding the South Korean Fishing Trawler that was captured illegally fishing in Somalia waters last week.

Confirming much of the exclusive revelations, the Auditor General has for the first time publicly accused the country’s Attorney-General Ahmed Ali Dahir and the Banadir Regional Court Chief of being responsible for the release of the fishing trawler. More troubling however, the Auditor-General has for the first time revealed of a plot to assassinate him within the Mogadishu’s Presidential Palace compound.

Not the Poseidon... but surely not too different. 

In particular, the Auditor-General accused the President’s Chief of Staff Ali Omar more commonly known as Ali Balcad of personally threatening the Auditor-General and labeling him a “security threat,” shortly before the assassination attempt was made on the life of the Auditor-General.

The South Korean Fishing Vessel’s positions 

According to the Auditor-General, the South Korean Fishing Trawler Poseidon is currently in Ceel Macaan, just north of Mogadishu actively fishing illegally in Somali waters. Sources tell SOMALI AGENDA almost $1.5 million has been paid to secure the release of the fishing trawler and deposited in a bank in Kenya with unnamed presidential aides being tasked to collect the money.

Since the inception of the current administration of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, critics have accused the president of enabling corruption to take deep roots in his government. In December of last year, The Bloomberg BUSINESSWEEK has disclosed documents and shady deals signed by former Natural Resources Minister Abdirazak Omar Mohamed which gave two British ex-Servicemen fishing rights over Somali waters. Abdirazak Omar Mohamed is currently a senior adviser to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on Oil and Gas.

So as you see, IUU fishing is deeply ingrained in the murkiest deals in many countries... is not just about illegal fishing...

Source here