OPINION (excerpt 3/4 rest at link)
China's Rampant Illegal Fishing Is Endangering the Environment and the Global Economy/Opinion
REAR ADMIRAL MIKE STUDEMAN , DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL MARITIME INTELLIGENCE INTEGRATION OFFICE (NMIO) AND COMMANDER, OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE (ONI)
ON 1/24/23 AT 10:14 AM EST
If the term "illegal fishing" conjures images of small numbers of scattered vessels independently pirating the sea's resources, think again. The problem of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated
(IUU) fishing stems increasingly from state-supported deep water fishing fleets, including massive trawlers accompanied by sustainment vessels, freezer, and transport vessels. Operating
continuously in large groups with global reach, these industrial-scale flotillas are able to drag massive nets, literally capturing everything in their wake, often without regard for fisheries
laws or consent of the coastal nations.
It's how a sharp increase in IUU fishing by Chinese fishing boats over the past decade has come to threaten the world's oceans, deprive seaside nations of their economic livelihoods, and undermine
international laws and norms.
A 2015 study found a 50 percent decline in ocean life over the last 50 years. According to United Nations data, approximately 90 percent of the world's remaining fish stocks are now fully
exploited, overexploited, or depleted. These fishing fleets target squid, tuna, mahi mahi, sharks, and countless other species.
Although IUU fishing affects the entire globe, coastal states in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are particularly hard hit. This "strip mining" of the world's oceans robs developing nations of
tens of billions of dollars annually, threatening the livelihood of local fishing communities, depriving citizens of critical food resources, and lowering regional nations' Gross Domestic Product.
Many of these nations lack the maritime domain awareness and enforcement capabilities to stave off these rapacious fishing fleets.
And the People's Republic of China's expansive fleet of distant water fishing vessels are disproportionally responsible for this trend.
After exhausting fish stocks in Chinese waters in the early 2000s, China helped grow their fleet through government subsidies, producing larger fishing boats capable of operating farther and
longer from the Chinese mainland.
Chinese distant water fishing fleets now comb broad swaths of the Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Pacific Oceans as well as waters off South America, East and West Africa, Antarctica, and the
South Pacific Islands.
The Chinese public consumes approximately a third of the seafood caught globally, and the country is also a leading seafood exporter. A recent study by the Financial Transparency Coalition
reported that eight of the 10 companies responsible for nearly a quarter of all reported cases of IUU fishing are based in China. Many of these companies have come under scrutiny for their
deceptive hiring practices, forced labor, abuse of migrant recruits, and other exploitative practices that amount to slavery at sea.
By China's own data, their distant water fishing fleet has nearly doubled in size over the last decade and is now the largest one across the world, nearly equal to the rest of the world's distant
fleets combined. Data from 2017 and 2018 indicated China's fleet numbers between 12,000 to 17,000 vessels, though counting the exact volume is problematic, because China often tries to conceal
fishing boat ownership.
According to the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, the total number of Chinese-flagged vessels in the South Pacific increased tenfold between 2009 and 2020. Peruvian
authorities observed that these fleets are so large that when they fish at night with bright lights to attract giant squid, the light footprint at sea is more massive than the capital Lima, a city
with more than 10 million people. PRC ships off Senegal catch as many fish in a week as all Senegalese boats catch in a year.
To obscure their presence from local authorities, Chinese fishing vessels sometimes turn off their Automatic Identification System (AIS) signal, then operate in other nation's Exclusive Economic
Zones (EEZ) without consent to exploit fishing opportunities, and then reactivate their AIS once out of the EEZs. One study reported nearly 90 percent of 300 fishing boats "going dark" near
Argentina's EEZ in 2019 were Chinese-flagged.
Even in the absence of deceptive practices, many states adversely affected by illegal fishing currently lack the ability to reliably detect and respond to fishing activity, even when they suspect
or know it is occurring in their EEZs. Chinese fishermen routinely exploit these gaps.
....more at link, not much...got tired of copy and paste :0)
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