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Pirate Fishing Exposed: A Report by the Environmental Justice Foundation

The UK based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has published a report following a two year investigation. The report, called Pirate Fishing Exposed highlights the extent of IUU fishing off the coast of West Africa and the direct impacts this has on the fishing communities in Sierra Leone. The report also shows how these illegal catches are laundered, enabling them entry and sale in the EU. Pirate fishing Exposed: The Fight Against Illegal Fishing in West Africa and the EU builds on EJF’s existing work in Sierra Leone; establishing a community surveillance project to deter IUU fishing. This new report links with several stories published by SIF in the past. In particular, the SIF Report: Seta 70, published in July 2011, highlighting SIF’s role in the assistance of the arrest and inspection of the Seta 70, also discussed in Pirate Fishing Exposed, and latterly a story published in August 2011: Trawler seized on suspicion of illegal fishing. Victor Kargbo, head of Fisheries Enforcement in Sierra Leone commented, "We have turned the corner in the fight against pirate fishing in Sierra Leone but if we don’t coordinate our efforts, these unscrupulous operators will just go elsewhere and continue their activities unabated. The EU can play a crucial role in deterring illegal fishing by making sure all fish entering has a catch certificate, but they should only accept imports from flag States that monitor their fleets properly."

Key findings of the report include:

  • 252 reports of illegal pirate fishing by industrial vessels in inshore areas were made to EJF’s community surveillance project by 23 coastal communities in an 18-month period

  • Despite the EU Regulation to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing, evidence collected on 10 vessels believed to account for the majority of reports revealed that nine are accredited to export their catches to the EU, the world’s most valuable import market for fish

  • 90% of vessels documented by EJF in West Africa were bottom trawlers which devastate marine environments by dragging heavy trawl equipment along the seabed resulting in damage to the bottom habitat, high levels of by-catch including vulnerable marine life such as sharks and turtles

  • Evidence of extensive use of Flags of Convenience

  • Evidence of increasing volumes of illegal catches being transhipped at sea onto large refrigerated cargo vessels destined for East Asia

  • Photos of physical violence against a local fisher who was knocked unconscious with an iron bar retrieving hooks from a South Korean trawler net

  • How the proper application of technology such as Vessel Monitoring Systems / GPS units can help combat illegal pirate fishing

  • The important role of local communities in successful sustainable fisheries management

 EJF has been working in partnership with local fishers and coastal communities in Sierra Leone since the beginning of 2010 to document and report illegal fishing. The ground breaking community surveillance project resulted in a collection of evidence that has been used to report illegal activities to the Sierra Leone government, the South Korean government, and the EU. These investigations have had important results, leading to over US $500,000 in fines for illegal vessels and on-going investigations by the EU, South Korea, and Panama. The EU is believed to be considering blacklisting the vessels involved in the investigation under the EU IUU Regulation, which would mean they would be prevented from exporting fish to the EU and be blocked from accessing European ports.

EJF Executive Director Steve Trent said: "We are encouraged by the success of community surveillance in Sierra Leone but we are also very concerned by the weaknesses in European controls that our investigations have revealed. The EU is relying too heavily on the assurances of flag States that plainly are not monitoring their fishing fleets in West Africa. Authorities inspecting fish in European ports have very little reliable information on what is happening in the areas where it is caught. EJF’s community surveillance project is going some way to address this information gap, but we must urgently improve communication between the EU and coastal States if we are serious about ending pirate fishing and protecting some of the world’s most vulnerable coastal communities."

Stop Illegal Fishing, a working group of the NCPA’s Partnership for African Fisheries endorses this report as a tool to highlight the extent of IUU fishing in West African waters, and as a motivation for the continued cooperation between flag States globally and port States within Africa, to prevent IUU activity which severely compromises food security, local livelihoods, the health of fish stocks and the marine environment in many African coastal states.

Source:  http://ejfoundation.org/oceans/media/pirate-fishing-exposed

Photo courtesy of EJF