{"id":700,"date":"2020-05-05T17:44:08","date_gmt":"2020-05-05T17:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/?p=700"},"modified":"2020-05-05T18:26:11","modified_gmt":"2020-05-05T18:26:11","slug":"understanding-the-scale-and-cost-of-illegal-unreported-and-unregulated-fisheries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/05\/understanding-the-scale-and-cost-of-illegal-unreported-and-unregulated-fisheries\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding the scale and cost of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fisheries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Since 1961, the average annual increase in\nglobal fish consumption has outpaced population growth and exceeded consumption\nof meat from all terrestrial animals combined 1<\/sup>. Accordingly, fish stocks have been\nincreasingly exploited, with 33% of fish stocks overfished and 60% fully exploited\nin 2015 1<\/sup>. Demand for fish is driven by\npopulation growth, human migration toward coastal areas, and rising incomes increasing\ndemand for luxury seafood 1<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To identify a sustainable level of fish stock exploitation, experts use a metric called the Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY), a threshold number of fish above which stocks are not sustainably harvested and will decline. While the metric itself has been criticised for oversimplifying complex population dynamics 2<\/sup>, and stocks have been commonly fished above MSY 3<\/sup>, an additional underlying challenge to this estimation lies in the number of fish that are removed in an Illegal, Unreported or Unregulated (IUU) way and not appropriately taken into account in stock assessments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated (IUU) fisheries?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

IUU fishing can\nbe defined as any fishing activity breaking fisheries laws or occurring outside\nthe reach of laws and regulations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a country\u2019s jurisdiction<\/strong> (i.e. territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zone \u2013 EEZ), illegal fishing<\/strong> is performed by vessels\nfishing without permission of the coastal state (poaching) or without complying\nto the delivered fishing licence (e.g. fishing outside of the fishing season,\nharvesting banned species, using banned gear, catching more than the allowed\nquotas)4<\/sup>. Almost 90% of fishing activity occurs within a country\u2019s\njurisdiction 5<\/sup>, where regulations often exist but enforcement may be poor,\nenabling illegal fishing to occur.  
\nUnreported<\/strong> catch includes\nunreported, misreported, or under-reported fishing 4<\/sup>. Not all catches that areunreported\nare illegal. In many cases, small-scale artisanal fisheries do not declare\ntheir catches simply because there is no legal mandate to do so or reporting\nsystems are lacking 6,7<\/sup>. Unregulated<\/strong> fisheries occur\nin areas or for fish stocks for which there are no applicable conservation or\nmanagement measures or conducted by flagless ships (i.e. a ship that has not\ndeclared the country it is operating for), preventing the regulation of their\ncatch 4<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leaving states\u2019\njurisdictions and going beyond EEZs (>200 nautical miles from the shoreline)\nlie the High Seas<\/strong>, international\nwaters known as Areas Beyond National Jurisdictions. There, a few fisheries\nsuch as tuna fisheries are managed by Regional Fisheries Management\nOrganisations (RFMOs), while others are left unmanaged. Countries can choose to\njoin RFMOs or sign international agreements and comply with fisheries rules.\nHence, illegal <\/strong>fishing occurs when\nParties fail to comply with the conservation and management measures of the\nregional fisheries bodies they joined or with the rules of treaties they signed\n4<\/sup>. However, states are not bound by treaties to which they are not\nParty, hence their practices may not be considered illegal. Irrespective of the\nlegal aspect, fishing by non-Parties is considered unregulated and\/or\nunreported unless the non-Parties have explicitly agreed to act in conformity\nwith the conservation and management measures of the RFMOs or international\nagreements 4<\/sup>. IUU fishing easily occurs in the High Seas where there are very\nlittle enforcement and regulations 5,8<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How can IUU fisheries happen? An\nexample from West Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In West African waters, Daniels et al. <\/em> demonstrated that illicit trade in seafood products is enabled by two major channels: the use of transshipment (offloading of multiple fishing boats onto large freezer ships at-sea)<\/strong>, and the rise of export through refrigerated container ships<\/strong> (84% of fish exported out of West Africa follow this way), mostly going to European markets and facing less stringent inspection and reporting than fishing vessels. Transshipment, in particular, prevents transparency and accounting for the origin of catches. Indeed, when the transfers occur on an unreported basis, IUU fish can be mixed with legal catches, so any controls at port may come too late 9<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IUU scale and cost to ecosystems, people and the economy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In 2009, one-fifth of the global fish catch<\/strong> was\ncaught as IUU 10<\/sup>. In some regions, such as the western and central Pacific Ocean and\neastern central Atlantic, IUU caught fish may constitute more than 30% of the\ntotal catch 10<\/sup>. A more recent study showed that 8-14 million metric tons of\nunreported catches were potentially traded illicitly yearly, representing a\ntotal of 9-17 billion US dollars 6<\/sup>. The yearly loss for the\neconomy<\/strong> due to the diversion of fish from the legitimate trade system was\nestimated to be 26-50 billion US dollars<\/strong>,\nwhile losses to countries\u2019 tax revenues were between 2-4 US dollars 6<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On top of economic losses, illicit trade in seafood products contributes to the depletion of a region\u2019s fish catch as these catches are not accounted for during the scientific stock assessments and the consequent management actions 6<\/sup>. More than 85% of fish stocks are at high or moderate risk of IUU fishing <\/strong>11<\/sup>. A studied showed that in Mexico, shrimp IUU fishing may double reported catches as nearly 50% of small-scale boats operated illegally 12<\/sup>. IUU fishing can have very significant effects on stocks.<\/strong> For instance, unreported catches of Mediterranean Bluefin tuna have significantly contributed to rapid stock declines 10<\/sup>. It is also estimated that actual shark landings are three to four times higher than reported catches, driven by the shark-finning trade 13<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

IUU fishing also threatens the food security and livelihoods\nof fishing communities<\/strong> 14<\/sup>. In\nSomalia, where foreign fishing has increased more than twenty-fold since 1981 15<\/sup>, foreign IUU fishing is directly competing with the domestic fishery;\nthrough links to piracy, illegal and destructive bottom trawling, contributing\nto regional political conflict over vessel licensing, and reducing long-term\nlivelihood security 15<\/sup>.  Finally,\nIUU fishing vessels are major enablers\nof human rights abuses and have been linked to organised crime and modern\nslavery<\/strong> 16,17<\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fighting back IUU fishing <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To fight back IUU fishing, the EU, through its European Commission Control 18<\/sup> and IUU Regulation 19<\/sup> have instated required catch certificates stating the origin of all fish and fish products traded within the European Union<\/strong>, one of the biggest seafood consumer. In 2016, the international Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing 20<\/sup> entered into force, with 66 signatory Parties but still without the participation of big fishing nations such as China and Spain. While international and regional agreements exist to counteract IUU fishing 18\u201320<\/sup>, enforcement, as well as increased transparency and accountability in supply chains, are urgently required to reinforce the fight against IUU 6<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consumer awareness<\/strong>\nregarding the vulnerability of fish stocks has also grown, with the development\nof eco-labels by organizations such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC<\/a>),\ndespite concerns of mislabelling 21<\/sup>. Advances in science and\ntechnologies<\/strong> such as gene-associated markers 22<\/sup> may now improve stock assignment and help fight again illegal\nfishing and mislabelling worldwide. Some fishing vessels can now be tracked\ndown in near real-time, thanks to efforts from the Global Fishing Watch 23<\/sup>, although more than a third of vessels in international waters were\nfound not to have their Automatic Identification Systems on, preventing their\ndetection 24<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a world where\nseafood commodities are increasingly being consumed and fished in an unsustainable\nmanner, addressing Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing is an urgent\nmatter. While countries are often reluctant to discourage fishing effort to\navoid short-term losses to the local fishery economy, addressing IUU fishing may reduce the total fishing effort, regenerating\nfish stocks without harming the economy<\/strong>. An empirical example from Indonesia\nillustrates that the country\u2019s efforts to curtail IUU fishing generated a 14%\nincrease in legal catch and a 12% increase in profit while reducing the total\nfishing effort by at least 25% 25<\/sup>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2015, the\nUnited Nations set the target of ending\nIUU fishing by 2020, as a part of the Sustainable Development Goals<\/strong> 26<\/sup>. This important target won\u2019t be met, and Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated\nfishing remains for now a major threat to marine biodiversity, preventing the\nsustainable exploitation of our ocean.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

References<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
  1. FAO. The State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture. http:\/\/www.fao.org\/3\/ca0191en\/ca0191en.pdf (2018).<\/li>
  2. Fath, B. D. Encyclopedia of Ecology. (Elsevier, 2018).<\/li>
  3. Client Earth. Taking stock -are TACs set to achieve MSY? https:\/\/www.documents.clientearth.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/library\/2019-11-14-taking-stock-are-tacs-set-to-achieve-msy-ce-en.pdf (2019).<\/li>
  4. Bray, K. A global review of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing. http:\/\/www.fao.org\/fishery\/docs\/document\/Ec-OpenRegistries\/BRAY_AUS-IUU-2000-6.pdf (2000).<\/li>
  5. Sumaila, U. R. et al. Winners and losers in a world where the high seas is closed to fishing. Sci. Rep. 5, 1\u20136 (2015).<\/li>
  6. Sumaila, U. R. et al. Illicit trade in marine fish catch and its effects on ecosystems and people worldwide. Sci. Adv. 6, eaaz3801 (2020).<\/li>
  7. Zeller, D., Harper, S., Zylich, K. & Pauly, D. Synthesis of underreported small-scale fisheries catch in Pacific island waters. Coral Reefs 34, 25\u201339 (2015).<\/li>
  8. High Seas Task Force. Closing the Net: Stopping illegal fishing on the high seas. https:\/\/d2ouvy59p0dg6k.cloudfront.net\/downloads\/high_seas_task_force_report.pdf (2006).<\/li>
  9. Daniels, A. et al. Western Africa\u2019s missing fish. 45 (2016).<\/li>
  10. Agnew, D. J. et al. Estimating the Worldwide Extent of Illegal Fishing. PLOS ONE 4, e4570 (2009).<\/li>
  11. WWF. Which fish species are at highest risk from illegal and unreported fishing? https:\/\/c402277.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com\/publications\/834\/files\/original\/Fish_Species_at_Highest_Risk_from_IUU_Fishing_WWF_FINAL.pdf?1446130921 (2015).<\/li>
  12. Cisneros-Montemayor, A. M., Cisneros-Mata, M. A., Harper, S. & Pauly, D. Extent and implications of IUU catch in Mexico\u2019s marine fisheries. Mar. Policy 39, 283\u2013288 (2013).<\/li>
  13. Clarke, S. C. et al. Global estimates of shark catches using trade records from commercial markets. Ecol. Lett. 9, 1115\u20131126 (2006).<\/li>
  14. Bondaroff, T. N. P., van der Werf, W. & Reitano, T. THE ILLEGAL FISHING AND ORGANIZED CRIME NEXUS: illegal fishing as transnational organized crime. 84 https:\/\/www.unodc.org\/documents\/congress\/background-information\/NGO\/GIATOC-Blackfish\/Fishing_Crime.pdf (2015).<\/li>
  15. Glaser, S. M., Roberts, P. M. & Hurlburt, K. J. Foreign Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing in Somali Waters Perpetuates Conflict. Front. Mar. Sci. 6, (2019).<\/li>
  16. Sumaila, U. R., Jacquet, J. & Witter, A. When bad gets worse: corruption and fisheries. Corrupt. Nat. Resour. Dev. (2017).<\/li>
  17. Tickler, D. et al. Modern slavery and the race to fish. Nat. Commun. 9, 1\u20139 (2018).<\/li>
  18. EU. Council Regulation (EC) No 1224\/2009 of 20 November. Off. J. Eur. Union L L 343\/1, (2009).<\/li>
  19. EU. Council Regulation (EC) No 1005\/2008 of 29 September. Off. J. Eur. Union L 286\/1, (2008).<\/li>
  20. FAO. Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing. Int. Leg. Mater. 55, 1157\u20131179 (2016).<\/li>
  21. Marko, P. B., Nance, H. A. & Guynn, K. D. Genetic detection of mislabeled fish from a certified sustainable fishery. Curr. Biol. 21, R621\u2013R622 (2011).<\/li>
  22. Nielsen, E. E. et al. Gene-associated markers provide tools for tackling illegal fishing and false eco-certification. Nat. Commun. 3, 1\u20137 (2012).<\/li>
  23. Souza, E. N. de, Boerder, K., Matwin, S. & Worm, B. Improving Fishing Pattern Detection from Satellite AIS Using Data Mining and Machine Learning. PLOS ONE 11, e0158248 (2016).<\/li>
  24. Weimerskirch, H. et al. Ocean sentinel albatrosses locate illegal vessels and provide the first estimate of the extent of nondeclared fishing. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 117, 3006\u20133014 (2020).<\/li>
  25. Cabral, R. B. et al. Rapid and lasting gains from solving illegal fishing. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 650\u2013658 (2018).<\/li>
  26. United Nations. Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. http:\/\/connect.springerpub.com\/lookup\/doi\/10.1891\/9780826190123.ap02 (2015) doi:10.1891\/9780826190123.ap02.<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Since 1961, the average annual increase in global fish consumption has outpaced population growth and exceeded consumption of meat from all terrestrial animals combined 1. Accordingly, fish stocks have been increasingly exploited, with 33% of fish stocks overfished and 60% fully exploited in 2015 1. Demand for fish is driven by population growth, human migration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[11,10],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-news","tag-fisheries","tag-iuu"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-scaled.jpg",2560,1704,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-scaled.jpg",2560,1704,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-scaled.jpg",2560,1704,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-1024x682.jpg",610,406,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-1536x1022.jpg",1536,1022,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-2048x1363.jpg",2048,1363,true],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-680x330.jpg",680,330,true],"evolve-post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-680x330.jpg",680,330,true],"evolve-slider-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-400x300.jpg",400,300,true],"evolve-tabs-img":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-50x50.jpg",50,50,true],"evolve-testimonial-avatar":["https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Ships-around-Singapore-2-modif-1-80x80.jpg",80,80,true]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Marie-Morgane Rouyer","author_link":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/author\/marie\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"Blog<\/a> News<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Since 1961, the average annual increase in global fish consumption has outpaced population growth and exceeded consumption of meat from all terrestrial animals combined 1. Accordingly, fish stocks have been increasingly exploited, with 33% of fish stocks overfished and 60% fully exploited in 2015 1. Demand for fish is driven by population growth, human migration…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":705,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions\/705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.science4wildlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}