New research from the University of British Columbia (UBC) finds that rogue fishing vessels are able to secure insurance, including those that have been flagged by international watchdogs for unlawful activity.
Leading author Dana Miller said that restricting access to insurance could play a major part in deterring illegal fishing, but right now it’s a largely overlooked method.
She said: “Insurers should take the simple step of consulting IUU fishing vessel lists to make sure that these notorious and well-known ships are refused insurance.”
Efforts to combat illegal fishing often focus on monitoring and surveillance, through the use of satellite tracking and inspections. However, the insurance industry has largely been left out of the discussion, even though it has the ability to make a significant impact on the number of illegal vessels by refusing insurance.
Ms Miller and her colleagues at the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries investigated insurance information for 94 IUU fishing vessels and 837 legal vessels that were required, by international law, to have insurance because of their size. They identified the insurers of 48% of the illegal vessels and 58% of the legal vessels and often the same companies provided insurance to both illegal and legal fishing vessels.
Some of the most notorious illegal fishing vessels were found to have insurance coverage including the Bandit 6, a fleet of six fishing vessels wanted for illegally taking Patagonian tooth fish from southern waters.
The authors also recommend that insurers mandate that all vessels over a certain size be assigned an International Maritime Organization ship identification number and operate satellite automatic identification vessel tracking technology. These measures would tighten regulation and increase transparency.
