The owner and captain of the Malaysian-flagged fishing vessel ‘Buah Naga 1’, that was boarded and arrested by Tanzanian law enforcement agents as part of Operation Jodari, have pleaded guilty to the charge of Unlawful Possession of Shark Fins in a plea agreement with Tanzanian prosecutors, Sea Shepherd informed.
Global Fishing Watch will collaborate with the US Coast Guard Research & Development Center to perform research on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing and share analysis to enhance global efforts to improve fisheries management.
The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) issued ten basic principles for states to follow in a bid to achieve transparency in global fisheries, a sector which has been at the centre of numerous human rights violations and for illegal fishing practices which pose a significant threat to the world’s ecosystems.
In a new investigation, the EJF reported several illegal fishing practices and human rights violations related to Taiwanese vessels. As such, the NGO is calling for Taiwan to sign up to the ten principles for fisheries transparency and for immediate action to be taken to prosecute vessels and companies alleged to be involved in illegal fishing and human rights abuses.
Thailand is set become the first country in Asia to ratify the Work in Fishing Convention C188, which sets basic standards of decent work in the fishing industry. On 29 November, Thailand’s National Legislative Assembly approved proposal to proceed with the ratification of ILO Work in Fishing Convention No. 188, 2007 (C188).
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit decided to uphold a preliminary order implementing a federal law that requires a ban on seafood imported from Mexico’s Upper Gulf of California and caught with gillnets that drown the vaquita porpoise. The decision is critical to the survival of the remaining 15 vaquita.
A Boston federal court sentenced the former captain of the ‘Bulldog’, a New Bedford based commercial fishing vessel for interfering with a US Coast Guard inspection of a fishing boat off the Massachusetts coast.
The Liberian Coast Guard arrested a foreign-flagged industrial trawler caught plundering artisanal fishing waters, during a joint operation by Sea Shepherd and the Liberian Ministry of National Defense aiming to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Republic of Liberia, West Africa.
The Bristol Magistrates Court fined an Irish fishing company and the skipper of the vessel ‘FV Ellie Adhamh’ £37,926, on 13 November. The fine was imposed due to multiple fisheries offences. The company and the skipper together pleaded guilty to all charges.
Speaking at a World Fisheries Day panel discussion he UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome, on November 21, Vatican’s Prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, Cardinal Peter KA Turkson, noted that the church should not remain silent to human rights abuses in the fishing sector.
