The European Union has updated its “list of vessels engaged in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing” and 41 tuna vessels have made the cut.
Compiled of 67 fishing boats in total, the list has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union. In terms of tuna vessels, the updated list no longer includes purse seiners, and only longline vessels have been branded as IUU. The reports on the 41 longliners being IUU comes from the 4 major tuna RFMO’s, the IATTC, IOTC, ICCAT and WCPFC.
Most of the national flags on the listed vessels come from countries such as Panama, Honduras and Africa. African flagged ships include vessels from Togo, Morocco, Guinea and South Africa. As for Asian countries, most of the IUU regarded boats are flagged under North Korea, Mongolia, Taiwan and Indonesia.
And that’s not to say that European vessels weren’t included in the compilation. Twelve out of the 41 IUU branded tuna vessels are flagged under a European state. One Portuguese longliner was identified for illegal fishing practices, one French, one flagged under the Isle of Man, two Gibraltarian vessels, three of the United Kingdom and four of Georgia.
Complete list here