This video highlights just how easily it is for entirely illegal fish to arrive on our EU plates - we, the consumer, are being duped as a result of economics driving individuals, organisations and governments to wantonly ignore not only the law but also the ethics and common sense of fisheries regulation. The quantity of fish found aboard the featured vessel, the Ocean Sea Queen/Ocean-3 and the difficulty facing the authorities makes the way in which we pursue tiny inshore vessels here look positively draconian and out of proportion by comparison. If every small handliner's catch for a year in Cornwall was stored together it would not begin to fill the refrigerated hold of this vessel!
Here's what Maria Damanki posted on her blog: "I watched with empathy, in the second episode of Al Jazeera programme “Pirate Fishing“, the adventures of the fisheries ministry inspector Victor Kargbo and the reporter Juliana Ruhfus, chasing the Sea Queen/Ocean-3, caught fishing illegally in Sierra Leonean waters. And I was thrilled when they succeeded! I am ever more convinced and committed that the EU has to play a leading role to stop illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
A lot is already being done: we need to identify the vessels fishing illegally (and we are doing so), so that they can be pursued even if they change name and flag. We have to put pressure on those countries that are reluctant to cooperate, protecting under their flags those who pillage the natural resources of countries that cannot effectively protect them. We need to work with our international partners, as we started doing with the U.S. administration. We have to introduce a new framework for Fisheries Agreements, to assist third countries to build technical and institutional capacity, to work with us ensuring a level playing field. But all this risks to have a limited impact, if there is no common and shared commitment. This is why my aim is to set up an international catch certification system, which would close major markets to the product of illegal fish and bring to an end to its profit. Fighting effectively IUU fishing is to be one of the priorities that the EU pursues when it comes to define sustainable development goals, in Brazil, in June, at theRio+20 conference."
As reported in previous posts, the EU is in a difficult position here as it has licensed a number of very large and powerful vessels to fish off African waters - who are therefore considered to fish legally! Some would argue that they are just as culpable as the unlicensed and illegal vessels from non-EU states like the vessel arrested and prosecuted in the Al Jazeera programme.