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An armada of pirate fishing vessels has invaded the Southern Ocean to poach tens of thousands of tons of a fish species known as the Patagonian Toothfish. Pirates Plunder the Southern OceanGreenpeace has sounded the alarm for many years now that the world’s oceans are under a very serious and growing threat from overfishing. Most commercially valuable species of fish are being ruthlessly over-exploited, while other fish species of little commercial value, and other marine wildlife such as marine mammals, seabirds, sharks and sea turtles are needlessly slaughtered as “by-catch”. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation virtually 70% of the world’s fisheries are either over- exploited, fully- exploited, depleted or slowly recovering. Adding to the problem is the enormous waste of the industrialised fishing fleet, which catches, kills and discards about 27 million tons of fish on average each year. That is equal to one-quarter of the annual marine fish catch being thrown overboard dead. The most blatant cause of global overfishing and waste is the unregulated growth in the number of large-scale, capital and technology-intensive fishing vessels that make up the world’s fishing fleet. Because this fleet has grown so large and so fast, fish catches in most traditional fishing areas of the world have declined dramatically in recent years. Consequently, more and more fishing companies are sending out their industrialised fleets to hunt down new fish stocks in far-flung corners of the planet. Many vessel owners operate like pirates, ordering their crews to deliberately flout international laws devised to protect and conserve fish stocks. A gold rush mentality has developed and attention focused on the unregulated areas of the high seas, particularly the remote Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica. Pirates operate world-over, from Antarctic oceans to the Mediterranean Sea, from the North Atlantic to the South Pacific. They move from fishery to fishery taking as much fish as they can pull onboard. They don’t care about what impacts – direct or indirect – they have on fish stocks or any other marine species caught or tangled in their fishing gear. In some cases they are driving species to extinction. They use “dummy” or “shell” companies to hide their owners’ identities and go to extraordinary lengths to conceal international trade routes. Their vessels sometimes carry no markings at all to mask their identities at sea. Some companies buy and fly “flags of convenience” from countries whose flags are for sale with no questions asked. They do this to dodge fishing rules set by their own countries and the international community. An armada of pirate fishing vessels has invaded the Southern Ocean to poach tens of thousands of tons of a fish species known as the Patagonian Toothfish. To marine scientists it’s known as Dissostichus eleginoides, but fish retailers usually tell consumers it is Chilean or Antarctic sea bass. Because the toothfish fetches such a high price in Japan, the U.S. and Europe, the pirate skippers are willing to risk arrest and fines to fish illegally in the waters surrounding Antarctica, the southern cone of Latin America, and off the sub-Antarctic islands of South Africa, Australia and France. It is estimated that more than 50% of the total Patagonian Toothfish catch - with an estimated value of US$500 million per year - that finds its way to consumers is illegally taken by pirate longliners. Scientists believe that as a result the Patagonian toothfish will be commercially extinct in less than two years. The pirate longliners ignore all laws, including operational rules designed to prevent the killing of seabirds. The projected mortality figures for albatross and petrels killed as bycatch in the pirate longline fisheries are at least 60,000 birds each year. Several albatross species consequently face extinction. Controls to manage fisheries on the high seas and to put an end to the pirate fishing in the Southern Ocean simply do not exist, and most nations lack the political will to do anything to end the gold rush. The onslaught by illegal and unregulated fishing vessels is undermining attempts to conserve the region’s biodiversity. The failure by nations to effectively and swiftly eliminate illegal fishing in the Southern Ocean has brought Patagonian toothfish populations to the brink of collapse. Greenpeace believes CCAMLR should declare and enforce a moratorium on fishing for toothfish. The moratorium should stay in place until the IUU fishery has been driven out, the remaining toothfish stocks assessed for their ecological ability to support a commercial fishery, and regulations are in place to adequately manage “resumed” fisheries. This moratorium needs to be supported by a trade ban in toothfish, that would require toothfish to be listed for protection on CITES Appendix 1, that is, no international trade. There is no one simple solution to illegal fishing, and the challenges presented by the vastness and remoteness of the Southern Ocean are daunting. However these challenges can and must be met, and CCAMLR must embrace a suite of measures to ensure that fishing can continue in this region on a sustainable and precautionary basis. Greenpeace demands that the nations whose pirate vessels are fishing in the Southern Ocean should move swiftly to apprehend and punish their owners. The penalties for pirate fishing should be substantial, including fining the owners and confiscating the vessels. Satellites are a key tool in the hands of several governments and private corporations that could be used to identify vessels fishing illegally, and track their movements to and from ports. All ships entering the Southern Ocean must be required to install vessel- monitoring systems. All countries should ban illegal fishing vessels from using their ports. Ships without vessel monitoring systems should be banned from using ports. All countries should ban the import of illegally caught Patagonian toothfish. Restaurants and other retail fish outlets should stop selling it, and consumers should stop buying. If the pirates can’t sell the fish, they won’t catch it. |
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