Pirate trawlers to face crackdown to aid fish stocks

PARIS – Pirate trawlers will be tracked by a new database as part of a planned crackdown on illegal fish catches worth US$9,5 billion a year that are adding to strains on global stocks, an international report said at the beginning of the month.

The so-called High Seas Task Force, comprising six governments and three conservation organisations, also urged tighter rules for trawlers, better monitoring of marine stocks and improved international co-operation to catch pirates. “Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is now a planet-wide scourge,” the World Conservation Union said in a statement about the report, issued in Paris.”The only ones to profit from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are the owners of the fishing fleets who remain hidden behind veils of corporate secrecy,” said Achim Steiner, Director General of the World Conservation Union.A new database – the Global Information System on High Seas Fishing Vessels – would help identify pirate trawlers as a step towards limiting exploitation of already depleted world fish stocks, it said.The task force comprised fisheries ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia, Chile, Namibia and New Zealand along with the World Conservation Union, the WWF environmental group and the Earth Institute.It estimated that illegal catches were worth up to US$9,5 billion a year, or about 14 per cent of the global marine catch in 2001.It said 25 per cent of fish stocks were over-exploited, depleted or recovering from depletion.A big loophole used by about 15 per cent of major fishing fleets worldwide is to register vessels under a “flag of convenience”, a country that does not enforce international maritime law strictly, the report said.Deep-sea fisheries in 75 per cent of the high seas, including most shark and squid fisheries, are unregulated since they fall outside national fishing limits.The task force came up with a nine-point plan, to be implemented immediately by participating governments, including the new database and aid to regional fisheries organisations “to detect, apprehend and sanction” pirate trawlers.Among threats, it said that fishing fleets often dragged nets along the seabed, damaging coral reefs, seamounts and sponge beds.It said populations of two deep-sea fish – the onion eye and the round-nose grenadier – in the northwest Atlantic had crashed by 93,3 per cent and 99,6 per cent over the past 26 years.- Nampa-Reuters”Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is now a planet-wide scourge,” the World Conservation Union said in a statement about the report, issued in Paris.”The only ones to profit from illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are the owners of the fishing fleets who remain hidden behind veils of corporate secrecy,” said Achim Steiner, Director General of the World Conservation Union.A new database – the Global Information System on High Seas Fishing Vessels – would help identify pirate trawlers as a step towards limiting exploitation of already depleted world fish stocks, it said.The task force comprised fisheries ministers of Britain, Canada, Australia, Chile, Namibia and New Zealand along with the World Conservation Union, the WWF environmental group and the Earth Institute.It estimated that illegal catches were worth up to US$9,5 billion a year, or about 14 per cent of the global marine catch in 2001.It said 25 per cent of fish stocks were over-exploited, depleted or recovering from depletion.A big loophole used by about 15 per cent of major fishing fleets worldwide is to register vessels under a “flag of convenience”, a country that does not enforce international maritime law strictly, the report said.Deep-sea fisheries in 75 per cent of the high seas, including most shark and squid fisheries, are unregulated since they fall outside national fishing limits.The task force came up with a nine-point plan, to be implemented immediately by participating governments, including the new database and aid to regional fisheries organisations “to detect, apprehend and sanction” pirate trawlers.Among threats, it said that fishing fleets often dragged nets along the seabed, damaging coral reefs, seamounts and sponge beds.It said populations of two deep-sea fish – the onion eye and the round-nose grenadier – in the northwest Atlantic had crashed by 93,3 per cent and 99,6 per cent over the past 26 years.- Nampa-Reuters