The Indonesian Ministry for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries sunk illegal fishing vessel ‘Viking’ earlier this week.
Prior to its sinking on 14 March 2016, the Viking was arrested on 26 February in Indonesian waters near the Riau Islands and was escorted to port where it was inspected and found to be in breach of Indonesian laws and subsequently destroyed at sea.
Sea Shepherd Global representatives were on the ground to film the sinking, which marks the end of over a decade of toothfish poaching in the Southern Ocean at the hands of the ‘Bandit 6’ toothfish poaching vessels, and the conclusion of Sea Shepherd Global's Southern Ocean Defense Campaign, Operation Icefish 2015-16.
Operation Icefish 2015-16 campaign leader, Captain Siddharth Chakravarty, said, “In a span of just 15 months, Sea Shepherd has cleaned up the Southern Ocean of illegal fishing. An issue that was largely thought to be unsolvable under current international legal instruments was confronted and dealt with using two direct-action, at-sea campaigns. Six of the most notorious and persistent poaching vessels on this planet are now out of commission making this one of the biggest successes in marine conservation history.”
According to Sea Shepherd, the Viking’s Captain, Huan Venesa of Chile, and its crew of 10 from Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Myanmar and Peru, remain in detention in Indonesia.
