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May 23: Belize fines pirate vessels
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April 21: Barbecuing on the High Seas
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April 12: The Garbologist and the art of garbology

UPDATE: BELIZE FINES CHIEN CHUN NO.8 AND JACKY NO.11 Tuesday, 23 May 2000

After our discovery of the Belize-flagged pirate fishing vessels Chien Chun No.8 (which we boarded and documented on 3rd May) and the Jacky 11 (which went alongside the reefer Hatsukari on 6 May to collect bait), we wrote to the Belize government calling on them to take enforcement action against these vessels. We received no response. So we then sent letters to the company that runs the Belize shipping registry asking them to forward our correspondence to the Ministers and other relevant people in the Belize government.

This did extract a response: the company informed us by e-mail that they have fined the owners of the two vessels, giving them 30 days to pay up or be deleted from the registry, which would mean they would be denied the right to continue to operate under Belize's flag. This is an important first step, and one of the very few times that Belize, which is a notorious flag of convenience state, has reacted to such information. It demonstrates that such states are feeling the pressure. It is to be hoped that Belize will follow Panama's lead, start to clean up its registry and join ICCAT.