During my life in fisheries (1986 to the present) I have been a direct witness of the criminalization of the fisherman. Yes, we always have had a dodgy image, I agree… but you have to understand that it requires a particular kind of person to be commercial fisherman… it is after all the most dangerous job in the world, and I’m convinced, (it definitively was my case), that attracts very independent people, and as such you’ll always have a bit of an issue with authority… particularly if it is just based on bureaucracy.
Some of the kindest, most resilient, pious and friendliest criminals you’ll ever meet.
And I want to stress how dangerous is to be a fisher, FAO estimated 32000 deaths on fishing boats a year, that is one fisher dies every 15 minutes worldwide. Being on board is VERY dangerous, doesn't matter what job you are doing.
And while back then we were seen as “unruly” we were also seen as hard-working people, and I been always very proud that my job feed people, which I think is something that has been forgotten… I didn’t catch fish for fun, or to brag on social media, I caught fish so others can eat and that way I made a living… my work feeds people.
And yes, anyone working on feeding people does impact the environments in one way or another, we are talking about how much, no about if… and you’ll be surprised how little environmental impact some forms of fisheries have (I wrote about this here)
Yet over the years, the discourse moved fisherman into the only culprits of IUU and pretty much being environmental rapists… I remember feeling so ashamed when my daughter, who was 7 at the time, introduced me to one of her school friends: my dad is fisherman… but he is nice one. She was embarrassed and apologetic about what I was.
So I have been aware of the discourse of “transnational crime” get IUU fishing, smuggling drugs, weapons and people all in one act… But it really got me, was when we had the unfortunate deaths of observers in the last years, the immediate assumption is that because the death happens on a fishing boat, it can only be murder! So on top of everything else, we are de facto assassins?.
I also believe that assuming by default that fishing boats are a de facto vector for environmental crimes, drugs, weapons, people, murder, and so on, just based on the fact that you have fishermen on board, has profound racial and class overtones. Imagine inferring any assumption like that on any other profession? You’ll be crucified… yet for fishers is ok?
I spend my life in boats and the crew nationalities we see today (Indonesians, Philippines, Myanmarians) are normally very pious people ... I worked with Indonesians and I've seen how harsh they can be to colleagues that drink alcohol for example... Philippino and Vietnamese crew prayed during dinner and gave me their deepest and heartfelt condolences for my grandmother when I was told she died while I was with them at sea... Perhaps I'm biased by my fishing origins, but I will never accept that we are all criminals just by being fisherman.
So when, when this paper came my way “The Intersection Between Illegal Fishing, Crimes at Sea, and Social Well-Being’ by a crew out of Tasmania, I was totally taken… read it from the link above.
The paper is solid, and I got to correspond with one of the authors, Chris Wilcox, for a collaboration that did not prospered, and was well impressed. I also reported on work of Jessica Ford, who also collaborated with them for an article on their paper on The Conversation website
Basically, they scrutinise the message by many philanthropic and environmental organisations think of illegal fishing as a “transnational crime”, involving organised criminals operating vessels on the high seas, smuggling drugs, weapons and people, and their research found this discourse is, by and large, bullshit.
They looked at more than 300 events of illegal fishing reported in the media across the Asia-Pacific region over the last years. And they found only six events involved additional associated crimes like drug possession.
Ergo, I totally agree with them that when illegal fishing is falsely represented like this, it can lead to ineffective investments and misguided policies, such as the requirement of over-the-top transparency and the criminalisation of fishers.
Yes, serious crimes do occur on fishing vessels, such as human rights abuses linked to reducing labour costs, the use of illegal gear to increase catches and revenue, misreporting, abusing of the “Impracticability” exemption in high seas transhipments and so on…. However, these fall within a fishing business model where, ultimately, a lack of profitability or just maximizing fishing returns drives illegal behaviour.
Most crimes associated with fishing are actually related to increasing fishing revenues or decreasing operating costs — not human, weapons and drug trafficking.
While many illegal activities take place on the ocean, there are distinctions and differences between them. These activities can be conceptualized through their underlying business models.
They propose a very interesting comparative analysis between three basic business models: harvesting, moving cargo, and provision of a venue. The three models are distinct based on key components of a business model. There are some consistencies, notably that they are all based on a physical asset. Perhaps this is why these different business models are sometimes incorrectly conflated. However, they differ in key activities and value proposition.
The crimes associated with fisheries at sea. There are separate business models linked to different crimes with minimal evidence of mixing across them
So they suggest that integrated criminal activities where multiple business models are operating simultaneously are uncommon.
In their data analysis, harvesting, and cargo endeavours are more often associated such as trafficking drugs via a fishing vessel, compared with venue based crimes. This may be because harvesting and cargo associated activities are more likely to be based on movements between ports, whereas venue based crimes could be stationed offshore. Most likely, cargo based crimes are mimicking harvesting based activities, such as fishing, and therefore are more likely and incorrectly combined as one activity.
There is a logical differentiation between business models from the perspective of the criminal organization. For instance, for a business moving illegal drugs between countries the key value proposition is the movement of the material in a clandestine manner over a short period. The time the cargo spends in transit is an opportunity cost, as the sunk assets of production cannot be recovered until the onward sale occurs.
In contrast, illegal harvesting is constrained by the rate of discovery and harvest of the species of interest. For instance, vessels harvesting giant clams must find appropriate habitat, deploy divers, and then recover the clams. In this case, the transit out and back from the fishing grounds is purely a cost, while the operation on the fishing ground is likely less costly in fuel, but generates increasing revenue per time. Given this, vessels using a harvesting model should be expected to maximize their returns by staying at sea as long as possible –constrained by the volume of catch the vessel can hold, and its fuel and food supplies.
Thus, the harvesting and cargo business models are in some sense fundamentally at odds in terms of their likely operating model. As such, one might expect vessels engaged in one business, such as harvesting, to occasionally move cargo as a minor activity in the context of their harvesting business, but it is unlikely that vessels would simultaneously engage in a mixed model.
This is supported by the evidence that for certain crimes, such as drug and weapon smuggling being related to IUU fishing. The predominant crimes identified both in the literature and media data were forced labour and workers' rights violations
Quite “radically”, they discuss that while every time more popular proposal for addressing IUU fishing has been increasing the transparency of fisheries. For example, environmental NGOs are pressing countries to share vessel tracking data and, in some cases, making this data publicly available.
While no doubts, transparency can help reduce illegal fishing, the key question is: transparency at what cost? Public ship-tracking data reveals fishing locations to competitors. For fishers, knowledge of these locations informs their business and being forced to share it undermines their competitive advantage. Likewise, the use of surveillance also comes with big caveats.
Some of the organizations I work within the IUU fishing domain use AIS (a positioning system that vessels send each other to avoid collision) quite successfully to analyse vessels and fleet patterns. Yet is a conundrum when you re-purpose a safety system for the surveillance of fishing vessels, as it may undermine its effectiveness for increasing safety at sea. Even vessels operating legally may not want their positions posted on publicly available websites.
Yes, data sharing and oversight is necessary among consumers, the supply chain and the regulators. But it’s unclear why outside parties, indeed the public, need access to this data?
Compare this to online fraud: web servers aren’t required to make all data on users and content publicly available. Just as e-commerce is a legitimate activity, and those in the system are entitled to protect their commercial advantages, so is fishing a legitimate activity with similar rights, within a well-regulated system.
In the end, oversight is essential for a well-functioning regulatory system, but so-called “radical transparency” could finish being counterproductive.
Is only by disentangling these crimes, we can better focus on solutions to reduce illegal behaviour on the sea and protect those vulnerable to fisheries exploitation, to enhance livelihoods, social well-being and the sustainability of global fisheries.
Finally, The Conversation article on the paper says something that I been insisting for over a decade:
To help government and industries across the world address illegal fishing, we need more investment in better-targeted data analysis and technologies and to build the skills of surveillance officers to improve identification of illegal fishing.
The only other thing that I will add is the income of fishers, observers and fisheries officers... I actually said a couple of weeks ago in an interview: "In my opinion, one of the biggest hurdles that we face in sustainability is that while we want it, we allow the underfunding of official institutions and pay fisheries officers and fishers salaries that are way below mediocrity, but we expect excellence from all of them"
So yeah… you want help, stop criminalising fishers and support those doing fisheries jobs!