29 June 2022
In early 2005, it was my turn to take the evening watch. I had set out from the west African nation of Guinea-Bissau about three hours earlier, on an Atlantic crossing by sailboat to Brazil with my family. It’s an unusual route, far off the beaten path, and I was looking forward to experiencing the central Atlantic “doldrums” and the opportunity to see more wildlife that these calmer waters promised.
What I did not expect to see was what looked like the glow of a city out at sea.
We were nearly 10 nautical miles off the coast and darkness was falling. Behind us, landward, barely an electric light was visible on the coast of a country currently ranked 175th on the . Yet towards the open Atlantic Ocean, a wall of blazing lights was moving as far as the eye could see. A look at the radar identified these as vessels, and as we approached, we could see that they were large industrial fishing boats, dozens and dozens of them. We were forced to zigzag between them for the next five hours. Closer to shore, the vessels were bottom trawling, a particularly destructive form of fishing. Further out, enormous mid-water trawler vessels targeting huge catches of small pelagic fish species moved slowly through the water.
This was my first experience with the sheer scale of industrial fishing operations in West Africa. At that time, I had no idea of where these vessels came from or the legality of these operations. But having spent the previous three weeks in Guinea-Bissau’s beautiful Bijagós Archipelago with local fishers in their dugout canoes, this was clearly not a level playing field.
I wanted to understand more. Soon after, I began working to document illegal fishing in West Africa with the . At that time, in the mid to late 2000s, you could sit on a beach in countries such as Sierra Leone and watch several trawlers plough up and down the coast within half a mile of where you sat. Often you would be sitting with members of fishing communities who were watching their fishing grounds being damaged, their nets being run over, their livelihoods destroyed, and their key source of animal protein being taken away. The fishing vessels were either not licensed, or if they were, they were illegally fishing inside the inshore exclusive zones reserved for small-scale fishing.
While the problem hasn’t been completely solved, this level of inshore illegal fishing has thankfully decreased in many areas of West Africa due to a huge amount of work by non-governmental organizations (NGOs), local fishing communities, governments and international intergovernmental organizations. Unfortunately, this has by no means meant the end of illegal fishing, particularly by what are known as “distant water fishing vessels”, which are either flagged or owned in one country but operate in another. Much of the focus of these distant water fishing vessels are the coastal waters of developing countries or on the global commons of the high seas. And as enforcement efforts have improved, the modus operandi of illegal fishing operators has become more complex.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a global problem that requires international cooperation to solve. It undermines the ecological and economic sustainability of fisheries, depriving nations of . IUU fishing devastates marine environments; threatens fragile fish stocks worldwide; and undermines the livelihoods of legitimate, legal fish harvesters, particularly in developing nations, with serious implications for global food security. IUU fishing takes advantage of poor governance and exploits weak management regimes, especially those of developing countries lacking the capacity and resources for effective fisheries monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS). IUU operators take advantage of broader global governance weaknesses, such as shell companies and open-flag registries that allow benefiting owners to hide themselves and their . IUU fishing is also often associated with organized crime, including labour abuses and contraband, as well as a failure to observe basic human rights and environmental standards.
FAO has officially defined but broadly speaking, illegal fishing is a violation of national or international laws that regulate fishing activity. This occurs in national waters or in areas of the high seas that are subject to an international fishing agreement. Unreported fishing includes catches that have not been reported or have been misreported to the relevant national or international authority in contravention of laws and regulations. Unregulated fishing occurs in areas or for fish stocks that have no applicable management measures in place. This applies to some small-scale fisheries in national waters but is particularly relevant to species caught on the high seas, an overwhelming number of which still do not fall under any .
Since those early days in West Africa, I have worked with both organizations and governments on this issue, supporting global campaigns with international NGOs and serving as a fisheries MCS advisor to governments, particularly in Africa.
In the early 2010s, some close colleagues and I identified opportunities and gaps that were not being addressed in efforts to combat IUU fishing. Too many neighbouring countries were operating in isolation of one another, despite the fact that distant water fishing vessels—and the fish they were targeting—were moving between these neighbours. New data sources, particularly satellite vessel-tracking opportunities, were becoming available but were not accessible to developing States. Also of importance was a disconnect between non-State actors, including international NGOs, who were campaigning for action on IUU fishing in developing States, and the capacity (and sometimes will) of the corresponding State actors to respond to those campaigns.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is identified by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations as a global problem that requires international cooperation to solve.
Our response, in 2013, was to found Trygg Mat Tracking—known today as —an NGO in structure but specifically not a campaigning organization. Instead, our focus is to bridge the gap between State and non-State actors by building relationships, and to act as a trusted technical partner to developing coastal, port and flag States.
Today, TMT provides national fisheries authorities and international organizations with fisheries intelligence, analysis and capacity-building, targeting a reduction of illegal fishing and broader improvements in ocean governance. We work with partner countries, primarily in Africa, bilaterally but as much as possible with regional groupings of countries. Within each country, we target cooperation with all government agencies relevant to fisheries enforcement as not only fisheries ministries but also as port authorities, navies and coastguards, maritime authorities, customs and labour agencies, and many more have a crucial role to play.
In cooperation with regional States and key partners such as and the , we have supported the pioneering of key regional initiatives to combat IUU fishing, including the and . These have at their core information-sharing and cooperation, and crucially, are close collaborations between the member States and the partner non-State organizations. The results of these efforts are internationally recognized and are identified by the countries involved as a crucial part of their anti-IUU fishing . Most importantly, they identify these approaches as serving a deterrent effect to IUU fishing operations in their waters.
During the global COVID-19 pandemic, some distant water fishing operations sought to take advantage of reduced controls and government processes to conduct IUU fishing activities. The pandemic thus further highlighted the value of ever-closer cooperation between State and non-State actors to avail themselves of the wide variety of capacities, tools, data sources and geographical coverage that these potential partners represent. New tools and technologies, like satellite tracking and data analytics, are enabling us to monitor fishing activities in ways that would have been impossible just a few years ago. This presents new opportunities to transform the way we govern our ocean and unlock ways to close the net on illegal fishing. But the international cooperation required to achieve such results is still a patchwork, and too many countries do not yet have the information or capacity they need to act upon it.
Today, we are aiming to change this. Founded in the run-up to the 2022 UN Ocean Conference in Lisbon, Portugal by the , and TMT, the Joint Analytical Cell () harnesses innovative technology and the complementary expertise and resources of its wider collaborating organizations, including State actors, NGOs and technology providers. JAC aims to transform ocean governance by facilitating collaboration, information-sharing, intelligence-led MCS and capacity-building. We seek to enable access to data, technology and analytics, with a particular focus on supporting developing coastal States that are responsible for overseeing vast areas of the ocean but may not have the capabilities to do so.
By providing high-quality intelligence and capacity-building to those that need it most, JAC will tackle IUU fishing cost effectively and at scale. It will serve as a hub for sharing intelligence, making sense of the multiple technology and data offerings that exist today, and providing operational support and training to for collaborative action to combat IUU fishing worldwide. It will support enforcement authorities in carrying out targeted, risk-based and effective MCS and enforcement operations. The insights and analysis that JAC provides will also support evidence-based policy, regulatory and legal reforms to strengthen ocean governance. By opening up access to data, technology and analytics, this unique collaboration will strengthen fisheries management worldwide and support effective action to end the scourge of IUU fishing.
With fish stocks and marine ecosystems under ever-increasing pressure from human activity, clamping down on IUU fishing has never been more important—a seemingly impossible task when I was in Guinea-Bissau almost two decades ago. As I look back on my years of working on IUU fishing issues, every experience tells me that this collaborative model is the way forward. All actors with an interest in this issue have a role to play, and happily more and more people on both sides of the State and non-State actor aisle across the world are acknowledging and engaging with this cooperative approach.
IUU fishing operators rely on an environment where they can fish out of sight, and where they can take advantage of information, enforcement and cooperation gaps. Working together, I am convinced that these gaps can be closed.
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