Illegal fishing in the Indo-Pacific

What is the issue?

The unregulated plunder of global fishing stock by China poses a grave threat to the livelihood and food security of millions of people.

What is IUU fishing?

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is a broad term that captures a wide variety of fishing activity.
Illegal fishing – It is conducted by foreign vessels in waters under the jurisdiction of a State, without the permission of that State, or in contravention of its laws and regulations.
Unreported fishing – Fishing which have not been reported, or have been misreported, to the relevant national authority, in contravention of national laws and regulations.
Unregulated fishing – It is conducted by relevant regional fisheries management organisation that is inconsistent with State responsibilities for the conservation of living marine resources under international law.
It is conducted by
- By vessels without nationality
- by those flying the flag of a State not party to that organization
- by a fishing entity

Why is illegal fishing seen as such a big threat?

Globally, fish provide about 3.3 billion people with 20% of their average animal protein intake.
Around 60 million people are engaged in fishing activities globally.
The unregulated plunder of global fishing stock poses a grave threat to the livelihood and food security of millions of people.
It is difficult to precisely quantify economic loss from illegal fishing. Some estimates peg it around USD 20 billion annually.
Collapse of fisheries can destabilise coastal nations and pose a much bigger security risk. This can fuel human trafficking, drug crime and terror recruiting.
This will also result in serious ecological damage.

Why is China blamed for IUU fishing?

The 2021 IUU Fishing Index, which maps 152 coastal countries, ranked China as the worst offender.
China is considered responsible for 80% to 95% illegal fishing in the Indo pacific region after having overfished its own waters.
China is known to incentivise illegal fishing with generous subsidies to meet its growing domestic demand.
China’s distant-water fishing (CDWF) is the largest in the world (17000 vessels).
These vessels, which can scoop staggering amounts of catch on every single voyage. They also employ destructive practise of bottom trawling.
China also uses them to project strategic influence and to bully fishing vessels from weaker nations.

How Quad plans to deter China?

Quad nations are getting ready to unveil a maritime surveillance initiative to protect exclusive economic zones in the Indo-Pacific against environmental damage.
The aim is to push back massive and reckless deep water fishing by Chinese trawlers in the region.
The idea is to monitor illicit fishing vessels that have their AIS (automatic identification system) transponders turned off to evade tracking.
The initiative will use satellite technology to connect existing surveillance centres in India, Singapore and the Pacific.
This will help establish a tracking system to combat IUU fishing.
The satellite-enabled dragnet will track IUU fishing activities from the Indian Ocean and South-east Asia to the South Pacific.
The move by the Quad security group is also seen to be aimed at reducing the small Pacific island nations’ growing reliance on China.

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