PIRATES PLUNDER THE ATLANTIC

In more recent times, however, the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea have become targets for plunder as industrial-scale tuna fishing fleets have proliferated, some coming from countries half-way around the world, to cash in on rising global demand and high tuna prices being bid in the lucrative markets of Europe, Asia and North America.

As a result, some of the region’s tuna species and other "tuna-like" species (e.g. marlin and swordfish) are suffering population declines that are of great concern to law-abiding fishermen, fisheries scientists and environmentalists. Also, because of the tremendous increase in fishing, other species caught as "by-catch" in the tuna fisheries are also being affected.

Bigeye tuna: Recent high catches of bigeye, especially since 1991, have caused the stock to decline rapidly. The stock is now over-exploited and at the point at which it could decline precipitously if the current catch levels are not reduced. Scientists have recommended that fishing effort be quickly and severely curtailed.

Atlantic bluefin tuna: The eastern stock of bluefin is in even worse shape. Increased fishing pressure in the 70s and 80s, and again since the early 90s, has led to declines in the stock of spawning fish. The spawning stock is currently thought to be less than a fifth as large as it was in 1970, at which point the stock had already been fished for centuries. A major problem faced by the scientists in assessing bluefin tuna is the extremely poor understanding of the fishery, for even the catches are not very well known. Without such basic data a proper management of the fishery is clearly impossible.

Tuna and related species such as swordfish migrate through the Central East Atlantic off the West coast of Africa, from the Gibraltar Strait to the mouth of the Zaire river. Some species also migrate from the Atlantic into the Mediterranean Sea through the Gibraltar Strait.

Swordfish: Some Atlantic and Mediterranean swordfish populations are also over-exploited; the stocks are far below the desired level and fishing is too intense. Scientists have noted good reproduction in the past couple of years, though, but warn that if the stock is to recover these fish must be allowed to mature in their turn.

As many tuna and other fish stocks continue to decline, not only in the Central Atlantic but worldwide, more stringent rules are being imposed on fishing activities. To counter these measures, unscrupulous fishing companies that want to continue to over-exploit marine resources right to the very end seek ways that enable them to evade the rules.

Greenpeace has coined the phrase "pirate fishing" to describe this increasing global phenomenon. 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, sometimes using several "shell" companies scattered around the world. Often these pirates simply fly no flag of national identify whatsoever when engaged in their illegal plunder.

An increasingly popular ploy used by many fishing and seafood trading companies is to buy and fly "Flags of Convenience" from countries whose flags are for sale with no questions asked, so that they can dodge fishing rules set by their own countries and by international law.
These "Flag of Convenience" countries (FOCs) will, for a large fee, allow fishing boats to fly their flag and then turn a blind eye to any violations of international fisheries laws. Globally, Honduras, Panama, Belize and St. Vincent & the Grenadines are by far the worst offenders.

Together, these four countries flag approximately 80% of the 1,323 large FOC fishing vessels (those over 24 metres long/100 gross tons) operating worldwide.

Table 1. FOC vessels by country of flag (Flag State).

Fishing vessel owners who register with Flag of Convenience countries know full well that these countries will not control their fleets. The vessels can then fish as if the rules don’t apply. They often use these flags to poach fish in the waters of developing coastal countries (for example, off the coasts of Africa) that lack the means to patrol their offshore waters.

The problem of pirate FOC fishing, however, is not the sole responsibility of the countries that sell their flags. On the other side of the coin, responsibility for Flag of Convenience fishing also lies with the major fishing countries’ governments that fail to restrict the fishing companies registered within their jurisdiction from owning and operating FOC fishing vessels.

Some of these companies may even have received subsidies from their governments to flag their vessels to FOCs. Clearly the European Union, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the other countries where these companies are based must also assume responsibility for the problems caused by FOC fleets. Finally, those countries where FOC caught fish are available on the market are ultimately responsible for providing the economic incentive to FOC vessels to break the rules.

In 1999, the governments of Japan and the USA tabled evidence identifying 345 FOC vessels fishing for tuna, including in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea. They flew flags from a total of 17 countries, notably Honduras (103), Belize (83), Equatorial Guinea (51) and St. Vincent and the Grenadines (50). Most of them are owned and managed by Taiwanese enterprises.

Table 2. Top 10 countries where the owner companies of the FOC flagged vessels on Table 1 are based

Ultimately, it is the lure of big money paid for high-quality tuna, especially on the Japanese market, that provides the incentive for the activities of the pirate tuna fishing fleet. The most important targets are the tunas because of their global economic importance and their international trade for canning and "sashimi" (raw fish which is regarded as a delicacy in Japan and, recently, in some other countries). Because they are so highly prized in the global marketplace, it is perhaps no surprise that many companies involved in the fishing business and international tuna trade will often try to evade the rules and regulations that would otherwise restrict their catches and their profits. In recent years, the wholesale price paid at landing for top sashimi-quality tuna has reached more than US$200 per kilogram, with some of the largest, high-quality individual tuna fetching up to US$50,000 a piece.

The three principal methods of catching tuna and tuna-like species are by purse-seines, longlines and pole-and-line fishing. The purse-seine and pole-and-line methods are used to catch fish found close to the surface whereas the longline method targets fish found at greater depths (e.g. large individuals of bluefin tuna, bigeye tuna, yellowfin, albacore, billfish and swordfish). Most purse-seine and pole-and-line catches are canned, while longline catches are mainly sold on the high-value sashimi market to be consumed raw, essentially in Japan. FOC pirates working in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea prefer longline fishing for tuna, which yields a higher quality product for the high-priced Japanese market.

Chronic Fishery Data Gaps

Stock assessment of tunas and tuna-like species in the Atlantic and Mediterranean regions is made extremely difficult by the chronic weakness of tuna fishery statistics. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) is the regional organization established under international law to manage tuna fishing and conserve the stocks, but its effectiveness is much hindered by poor reporting, or under-reporting, by the fishing boats which have permits to fish in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. But there is no data at all from the pirate fleets. ICCAT data suggest that the pirate FOC vessels fishing for tuna in the region land an amount equivalent to perhaps as 10% for all tuna species and a quarter of the catches for the prized bigeye tuna. This makes a mockery of attempts to develop fishery statistics systems and coordinated research programmes.

Even though the FOC pirates are targeting tuna species such as bigeye and bluefin, and other tuna-like species such as swordfish, most countries whose flags the owners of these vessels operate under are not members of ICCAT. Consequently, this pirate FOC fleet simply does not comply with any of ICCAT’s rules set down to manage the fishing and conserve the tuna stocks, nor do they provide any information about their catches which is needed to enable managers to get a clear picture of the status of the tuna stocks in the region.

The Wider Ecological Impact of Longline Fishing

Most of the pirate/FOC ships that fish in the region are industrial longliners, 55 to 65 meters long. They target bigeye and bluefin tunas, but also can catch other tuna species, as well as numerous other sea creatures such as sharks and sea turtles.

An individual longline vessel will deploy up to 100 kilometers of longlines in a set that can carry more than 2,000 hooks. In many situations, longline fishing can be a highly indiscriminate and destructive fishing technique. With hundreds of boats setting tens of thousands of kilometers of longline and hundreds of thousands of hooks daily in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, there is, in addition to tuna, a wide range of other species of marine wildlife that are incidentally caught and killed in the course of fishing.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (UNFAO) reports that catches of dolphins, pilot-whales and other marine mammal species, as well as turtles, have been observed and monitored in offshore fixed gear fisheries, including longlines targeting swordfish and tunas. Annual takes of sea turtles through ocean longline operations have been reported at 40,000 worldwide.

However, as is the usual situation in fisheries, very little information is available on what is caught other than the commercially important species such as the tunas and billfish. ICCAT recently began collecting information on incidental capture of sharks but the information submitted is far from complete and most countries do not provide any data at all.

Some longline fleets have had observers placed upon a few vessels. Their reports allow a glimpse of what happens at sea. Observers on seven different ships in the northwest and central Atlantic recorded a total of 44 different species:
5 tunas, 5 billfishes, 14 sharks and rays and 20 other fish species. Additional species were not identified. On most ships, blue sharks were the second most common species to be caught, usually from 15-20% of the total. All sharks combined comprised up to ¼ of the catch, in terms of numbers. Apart from mako sharks, most were finned and then discarded. Indeed, a recent FAO study concluded that longliners in the Atlantic Ocean could be taking as many as 2.3 million sharks per year.

Sea turtles can also be caught by longlines. The world’s major nesting beaches for leatherback turtles are in the Atlantic and olive ridleys, loggerheads and green turtles also nest around the Atlantic; some of their colonies are very close to the longline fishing grounds. While the hooked turtles are often released alive, some are injured or dead and scientists have concluded that longlining operations could be having a substantial impact on at least the leatherback population.

Greenpeace calls for EU Action to Stop Flag of Convenience Fishing

The Central Atlantic and Mediterranean Sea are prime regions targeted by fleets of "pirate" vessels. ICCAT and the Sub-regional Commission for Fisheries in West Africa have adopted certain measures in an attempt to discourage such abuses. Primary among them is an agreement to ban the import of bluefin tuna from FOC countries that do not abide by ICCAT rules. Currently, the ban applies to Belize, Honduras, and Equatorial Guinea. Bluefin tuna caught by Panamanian vessels had also been banned but, under international pressure, Panama finally joined ICCAT and started cleaning its registry and so the ban was lifted.

But fishing vessels change flag as soon as the pressure on the flag-state increases. Vessels previously flagged in Panama are then simply changing to a more "convenient" flag. Flag of Convenience fishing fleets are also extremely mobile and many vessels are known to operate in different oceans targeting different species. Even vessels previously flagged in some ICCAT member countries have changed to a Flag Of Convenience and continued to fish in contravention of the law. They either land their catches in "pirate-friendly" harbours, such as Las Palmas (Spain-Canary Islands) or transship catches at sea onto big transport ships called reefers.

Although the international community is seriously concerned by this threat to the sustainable management of fisheries, it does not have the means to effectively solve the problem. The United Nations General Assembly
adopted a resolution in November 1999 calling on states to ensure that vessels flying their flag abide by regulations. But some more persuasion will be needed to bring all flag states to enforce the law. To that end, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization is expected to negotiate and adopt an International Plan of Action to combat Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing.

The European Union (EU) is one of the major fishing powers worldwide and in the East-central Atlantic region. It is by far the biggest catcher of tunas and billfishes in the Atlantic Ocean, with over one third of total catches. Las Palmas harbour (Canary Islands – Spain) is a haven for FOC fishing vessels. The newly adopted EU subsidy policy for fisheries, the Financial Instrument for Fisheries Guidance, allows subsidies to be used by EU companies to "re-flag" their fishing vessels to Flags of Convenience. Obviously, the EU bears responsibility in ensuring that FOC fishing is brought rapidly to an end.

Greenpeace is calling on the EU to:

1. close its ports to FOC fishing vessels and fisheries-related support and transport vessels
2. close its market to FOC-caught fish and fish products
3. prevent EU-based companies from owning or operating FOC fishing vessels and fisheries-related support and transport vessels

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