Sea Shepherd’s vessel ‘Sam Simon’ together with Lipari’s Coast Guard, Milazzo’s Revenue and Customs Authorities, and with the collaboration of artisanal fishermen, confiscated 52 Fishing Aggregating Devices (FADs) and 100 km of polypropylene line in Italy’s Aeolian Archipelago in 178 hours.
The ILO estimated in 1999 that 24,000 people die every year in the fishing sector, an amount 10 times more than merchant ships. However, fishing vessels are excluded from almost all international maritime regulations. The 2012 Cape Town Agreement wants to stop that and outlines fishing vessel standards.
The proposal considers the obligation for fishermen to bring to land all catches as of 1st January 2019. It also reduces the catch limits in seven fish management areas compared to 2017-2018 levels, including for alfonsinos and black scabbardfish. Fishing for orange roughy will remain prohibited.
According to the Environmental Justice Foundation, around 90% of Ghana’s industrial fishing fleet is linked to Chinese ownership. However, Ghana’s laws forbid any foreign ownership or control of vessels flying its flag. Thus, EJF calls the Chinese and Ghanaian governments to work together to eliminate illegal fishing practices in Ghana.
Greenland’s Minister for Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture hosted a Signature Ceremony for an international fisheries agreement to prevent unregulated high seas fisheries in Central Arctic Ocean. Parties have taken responsibility to engage in scientific cooperation for a sustainable fishery management in the area.
In a recent paper, UNODC focused on different examples of fisheries crime to illustrate its various methods, its extent and its economic value. Fisheries crime relates to a range of illegal activities in fisheries, including illegal fishing, document fraud, drug trafficking, and money laundering.
TRAFFIC, the international wildlife trade monitoring network, released the report ‘Empty Shells: An assessment of abalone poaching and trade from southern Africa’. In this report, TRAFFIC says that over the past 18 years, poachers have stripped South African coastal waters of at least 96 million abalone.
The ‘Human Trafficking and IUU Fishing Act’ would add the Secretary of Commerce to the President’s existing Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in response to the growing human trafficking, forced labor, and human rights abuses in global seafood supply chain.
The fishing industry’s volume and complexity make it vulnerable to exploitation by transnational organized crime. As such, UNODC and the government of Ecuador organized the first “Regional Conference on Fisheries Crime” of the Americas on 12-13 September in Guayaquil, Ecuador.
The US have filed a civil enforcement action against Azure Fishery LLC, the company’s managers, the operator of the commercial fishing vessel Jaxon T, and the new owner of the vessel for violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The US also lodged a partial settlement to resolve the claims against the two company managers.
