Impacts of IUU fishing

IUU fishing is a global phenomenon with many detrimental environmental, economic and social impacts, a fact that has led the international community to consider it a serious threat to world fisheries.

The countries that bear the greatest economic costs from IUU fishing are largely those in the developing world, where in many places IUU fishing is rampant. The seas off the coast of West Africa are an example of an area that is particularly susceptible to illegal fishing. These waters support one of the world's most productive marine ecosystems, upon which millions of people depend. Marine and freshwater fish are the primary source of animal protein consumed, and the fisheries sector directly accounts for up to a quarter of the workforce in the region. However, when countries lack the resources to properly police their territorial waters - extending 200 miles out to sea - IUU fishermen are quick to exploit the situation. Vulnerable war-torn or post-conflict nations such as Sierra Leone, Angola, Liberia and Somalia are specifically targeted by IUU operations.

A recent estimate by the UK government has revealed that IUU fishing costs countries across Sub-Saharan Africa almost a billion dollars a year in lost revenues, equal to 19% of current landed value. In an all too familiar story of global economic forces, it is companies from the developed world that are responsible for this illegal pillaging of an invaluable natural resource, and it is largely onto the markets of Europe, the USA and Far East to which this illegal catch flows.

IUU fishing is bad news for legitimate fishermen everywhere, however, not only those in the developing world. Underreporting of catches by authorised fishers, and unreported illegal catches, mean that the catch data collected by fisheries managers is incomplete and likely to give a more optimistic assessment of the status of fish stocks than is actually the case. Management decisions made are therefore likely to be inadequate, and will fail to conserve stocks as intended. In extreme circumstances this can lead to the collapse of a fishery, or serious impairment of efforts to rebuild stocks that are already depleted.

Fish caught by both IUU and legitimate fishers are sold on the same markets, but legitimate fishers pay higher operating costs from supporting fisheries and conservation measures. IUU fishers are free riders that benefit from the sacrifices made by others, thereby undermining legitimate fishers and encouraging them to disregard the rules as well, thereby creating a destructive downward spiral.

IUU operators take advantage of not only developing countries lack of resources to police fishing grounds; they also exploit the financial and human misery that prevails in many of these same countries to run their activities at the lowest possible cost. Wages make up a high proportion of running costs, so IUU crews tend to be recruited in low-income countries where lack of alternative employment opportunities, largely unregulated labour markets and minimal controls on working conditions exist - thereby ensuring a supply of cheap labour. These crews are forced to work in dangerous conditions and are subject to a catalogue of abuse.

In addition to negative effects on target stocks, IUU fishing can severely impact the wider marine ecosystem. As IUU fishermen flout rules designed to protect the marine environment, including restrictions on the harvest of juveniles, closed spawning grounds, and gear modifications designed to minimise the bycatch of non-target species, they inflict damage on seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles, and marine biodiversity as a whole. For example, illegal long-line vessels in the Southern Ocean are estimated to kill 100,000 seabirds, including tens of thousands of endangered albatrosses, each year.

Quantifying the ecosystem effects of IUU fishing and distinguishing from those of legitimate fishermen is often extremely difficult, not least because the environmental damage inflicted by legitimate fishing is often so great. However, one clear and striking example of the environmental damage that IUU fishing can inflict on marine ecosystems are driftnets, which despite being banned under both EU and international law continue to be used across the Mediterranean basin by fleets from Italy, France, Morocco, Turkey and Algeria to target swordfish and tuna.