A fleet of tuna fishing vessels with a history of illegal activity has been blacklisted in the Indian Ocean by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC).
IOTC’s decision – taken at its 26th session meeting in the Seychelles – followed investigations by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), which led to the fleet being banned from catching tuna in the Atlantic by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) in 2021 and being dropped by its insurer in March this year.
EJF said the fact the fleet is now banned from both the Atlantic and Indian oceans demonstrates the scale of the illegality.
The NGO also highlighted that this fleet had gone to extreme lengths to evade scrutiny of its illegal actions, including relocating its fishing activities from one ocean to the other, changing the nation’s flag under which the vessels were operating, changing the names of the vessels and engaging in illegal transhipment.
This, EJF said, is a “textbook example” of operators using the chronic lack of transparency in fisheries to perpetrate illegal activities and decimate ocean ecosystems, adding that “this urgently needs to change” and that there simple, low-cost measures that are well within the reach of any country that could play a pivotal role in the battle against illegal fishing and accompanying human rights abuse in the sector.
EJF CEO Steve Trent applauded both the Atlantic and Indian Ocean tuna commissions for taking action to prevent this fleet from continuing to decimate ocean ecosystems.
But tackling each illegal fleet one by one is not the solution, Trent said.
“To safeguard the ocean, food security and livelihoods around the world, we need to place transparency at the heart of global fisheries. Cracking down on opacity by preventing the use of flags of convenience and improving port inspections, coupled with the publishing and sharing of information – such as vessel license lists, history of offenses, and full ownership details – can help governments, regional fisheries management organisations, law-abiding fishing companies, NGOs, retailers and even consumers to work together to rid our oceans of these damaging operators. We need to hold these illegal operators to account, and that starts with transparency.”
