Three countries, Bulgaria, Poland and Portugal, signed the “Torremolinos Declaration” in efforts to ratify the Cape Town Agreement by the tenth anniversary of its adoption (11 October 2022), and to combat illegal unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).
Finland is the latest country to join the Cape Town Agreement concerning fishing vessel safety, in efforts to bring mandatory safety measures for fishing vessels of 24 m in length and over. The treaty will be enforced one year after at least 22 states, with an aggregate 3,600 fishing vessels of 24 meters in length and over operating on the high seas have expressed their consent to be bound by it.
According to Reuters, the Amazon river dolphin known as pink dolphin located in Brazil, is under threat since fishermen are hunting and killing them illegally by making them bait for a catfish called piracatinga, which gathers fish that demand high prices in the city.
The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) is collaborating with the European Fisheries Control Agency (EFCA) providing additional surveillance capacity through a remotely piloted aircraft system (RPAS).
Sea Shepherd Legal entered into an agreement with Ecuador’s Office of the Attorney General to increase Ecuador’s capacity to fight illegal fishing and related criminal activity. Sea Shepherd Legal will provide training and other support to help Ecuador.
Trawlers continue to operate illegally, as well as dodge fines in Ghana, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). Namely, last year, the vessel Lu Rong Yuan Yu 956 was caught in Ghanaian waters with illegal nets and undersized ‘small pelagic’ fish on board. Despite the owners of the vessel were fined US$1 million fine, they refused to pay.
The UK Maritime CoastGuard Agency (UK MCA) began monitoring the country’s commercial fishing industry and compliance with ILO 188, assisted by technological means to monitor the situation. UK MCA highlights that commercial fishing is the most dangerous profession, with totally seven lives lost in 2019.
The South Korea made a revision on its Distant Water Fisheries Development Act, which is already under progress in order to tackle illegal fishing. As the Environmental Justice Foundation along with a group of other NGOs noted, the revision allows deterrent sanctions to be forced quickly and efficiently.
Efforts to end overfishing in the EU continue, on the sidelines of an EU Fisheries Ministers gathering in Brussels to set fishing levels for the North East Atlantic for 2020, an action supported by more than half a million signatures from EU citizens.
Representatives from the ITF Fishers Rights Network presented a petition, signed by more than 1,200 migrant fishers, calling on the Thai Government to directly implement and enforce the ILO Convention 188, which the country ratified in January 2019.
