Ecuador’s navy circles a Chinese fishing vessel suspected of fishing illegally (Image: Alamy)
On a sunny day in June 2019, the seven crew members of the artisanal fishing boat Mercedes Rosario spotted big international vessels off Peru’s Pacific coast. Captain Jorge Jacinto Galán decided to anchor nearby and wait for nightfall, when these vessels turn on their powerful lights to attract Humboldt squid in large numbers.
“These boats were 50 miles off the coast of Callao,” Jacinto recalls, well within Peru’s 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), which foreign vessels cannot enter without permission.
Jacinto, who is also the president of the Association of Shipowners and Artisanal Fishermen of San José, recorded the encounter in two photographs that he later showed at a meeting with Peruvian authorities. The vessels did not carry flags, Jacinto said, a practice common among vessels suspected of engaging in illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Talk about a year. A record hurricane season, renewed focus on the Arctic and counternarcotics, vessel construction, even greater emphasis on professional development, COVID-19, and a continued focus on diversity efforts the U.S. Coast Guard saw a little bit of everything in 2020. In it all, the common denominator was people. The Coast Guard would not have been able to continually answer the call if not for its service men and women. It has always understood the power of a diverse workforce in race, gender, experience, education, and opinion and it leverages those differences to be the world’s best coast guard.
China s leaders see distant water fleets as a way to project presence around the world. The aim is to be present all over the world s oceans so that they can direct the outcomes of international agreements that cover maritime resources. Tabitha Mallory, CEO of China Ocean Institute and affiliate professor at the University of Washington, Axios, March 23, 2021.
In the past five years, more than 500 abandoned wooden fishing boats, often with skeletons of starved North Korean fishermen aboard, have washed up on the shores of Japan. For years the cause was unknown, until it was found out that the likely reason was that an armada of Chinese industrial boats fish illegally in North Korean waters.. It is estimated that China s fishing vessels have depleted squid stocks in North Korean waters by 70%.
Leaked US intelligence document calls for support of South American countries fight against Chinese IUU
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A leaked document originating from the Office of Intelligence and Analysis – part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – has recommended the creation of a multilateral coalition with South American nations led by the U.S. to challenge China s illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing and trade practices.
Illegal fishing constitutes the sixth-most lucrative criminal endeavor globally, with estimated annual revenues of USD 15 billion to USD 36 billion (EUR 12.3 billion to EUR 29.6 billion), according to a 2017 report by Global Financial Integrity. The Chinese fishing fleet –estimated at 15,000 vessels by the Overseas Development Institute – is by far the largest in the world, and China is the country with the worst rating for contribution to global illegal fishing in a 2019 Global Initiative report.
Hai Lu Feng 11 on 16 May 2020 stands as one of the most successful recent examples of both maritime security cooperation and naval operations in the Gulf of Guinea. Pirates took the vessel and its crew of 11 on 14 May off of Côte d’Ivoire and sailed across the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Ghana, Togo, and Benin before being interdicted 14 nautical miles off the coast of Nigeria. The information sharing across the region and the operations by the navies of Benin and Nigeria led to the successful release of the vessel and the hostages. The case will soon be the first true piracy case tried under Nigeria’s new Suppression of Piracy and Other Maritime Offenses Act.