News
First Meeting of the WECAFC Regional Working Group on IUU Fishing
Of the USD 10-23 billion estimated to be lost annually through the illicit harvesting of fish, USD 700-930 million is thought to come from the wider-Caribbean, Western Central Atlantic region. The large exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of several of the Caribbean Small-Island Developing States (SIDS), and limited monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) capacity, have made the region particularly vulnerable to illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
A study of the Caribbean Regional Fisheries Mechanism (CRFM) on MCS determined that the costs of ensuring compliance by foreign and domestic vessels are large, and that national level MCS capacity in the Caribbean SIDS is limited. Similarly, a ‘Review of current fisheries management performance and conservation in the Western Central Atlantic Fishery Commission (WECAFC) area’ identified a number of challenges in fisheries management. The take-away message from both the study and the review was that regional collaboration and coordination are key to success in preventing, deterring and eliminating IUU fishing.
The 17 CRFM Member States recognized the need to create a Working Group on MCS and IUU fishing and agreed that WECAFC would support CRFM to seek international community cooperation in terms of provision of financial and technical support. It was further agreed to establish a Regional Working Group on IUU Fishing (RWG-IUU), to improve coordination and cooperation between national organisations and institutions responsible for fisheries-related MCS in support of their common efforts to combat IUU fishing.
On the 1st and 2nd of March Stop Illegal Fishing attended the First Meeting of the RWG-IUU, held in Barbados. Organised by the WECAFC Secretariat in collaboration with the CRFM Secretariat, the purpose of the meeting was to formally establish the Working Group; bringing together stakeholders, and building capacity for more effective collaboration, with specific emphasis on lessons learned from other regions, one example being FISH-i Africa in the Western Indian Ocean (WIO).
Stop Illegal Fishing Coordinator Per Erik Bergh presented the FISH-i Africa concept, explaining the need for a Task Force in the WIO region, how it works, its challenges and its successes. Several of the investigations that the Task Force collaborated on and the wider experiences of crime and illegality in the WIO are detailed in the new FISH-i Africa publication ‘Illegal Fishing? Evidence and Analysis’, which Per Erik Bergh described in his presentation.
Speaking on the future of FISH-i Africa and similar initiatives, Mr Bergh stated that “The starting point has to be increasing the availability, accuracy and access to fishing vessel information. Without a mandatory vessel identifier, operators can change the name and flag of a vessel, at any time, for any reason and simply fake or forge documents to match.” He encouraged attendees to “Cooperate widely with the key actors in the field, to ensure the mechanism of, and lessons learned from FISH-i and other initiatives can be incorporated where appropriate to provide sustainable, workable and scalable solutions.”