Tag: illegal fishing

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. 

During the meeting of North-East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC), the EU and other participants decided on some specific conservation and management measures for 2020, while also agreed on measures to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Even though the waters off Scotland’s west coast, home to some of the richest marine habitats around any of the more than 5,000 British Isles are under strict protection, the staggering biodiversity of Scotland’s west coast still remains at risk. In fact, Wester Ross, a place called Scotland’s answer to the Great Barrier Reef and a powerhouse of biodiversity, an algae forest sheltering millions and millions of baby fish and protects them from predators is still under threat due to illegal industrial fishing.

Women's power plays an intense role in the fishing industry, but their contribution is usually ignored. A side event on Women in Fisheries located at the Torremolinos Ministerial Conference (21-23 October), brought together key stakeholders from fisheries sector to debate the role of women in this field.