Feature story - March 7, 2007
Today we launched the world's first global online database of blacklisted, Illegal Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing vessels. This database will help regulators, port officials, fish buyers, coastal communities and others keep track of pirate fishing vessels. It also exposes how shamefully little official bodies have done to curb pirate fishing on a global scale.
200 miles South West Guinea Bissau.
Chinese fishing boats Lian Run 24 and Lian Run 29 illegally transshipping frozen fish boxes onto Binar 4 Panama reefer.
Greenpeace and the Environmental Justice Foundation are working in partnership to expose the scandal of pirate fishing, as part of the year - long Greenpeace Defending Our Oceans expedition to highlight a range of threats to the oceans.
"The fact that we had to publish a global database of blacklisted illegal
fishing vessels demonstrates clearly just how little concrete
action states have taken to stop the pillage of our oceans," said
oceans campaigner Sari Tolvanen.
Modern commercial fishing is a global business. When a ship
gets into legal trouble it can often change its flag state or name,
then show up in another port. Information sharing using a global
database will help with tracking suspect ships wherever they go.
Supply vessels, refrigerated cargo ships and the companies and
owners behind them may also be in the database.
The database will initially contain information from official
sources; at a later stage it will also become an interactive tool,
where coastal communities and fishers can report information about
irresponsible vessels and their owners.
Meeting in Rome
The blacklist was launched in Rome today, where a biannual UN
Food and Agriculture Organisation's Fisheries Committee meeting is
taking place. At the meeting, the issues of blacklist databases and
licensed fishing vessels databases is on the agenda once again. We
also brought our new report to the meeting exposing just how little
has been done in the last five years to stop IUU fishing,
particularly in regions like West Africa. Our investigations in
Guinea last year found that almost half of the 92 fishing vessels
we encountered in Guinea's waters were fishing illegally, or linked
to illegal fishing activities. It has been estimated that
sub-Saharan Africa loses around $1 billion a year due to the
activities of such illegal trawling fleets.
Six years ago, the FAO approved an International Plan of Action
to combat illegal fishing, but little has been done so far.
Our team at the meeting is passing out bookmarks with oceans.greenpeace.org/blacklist
on one side, and fishing-vessel-whitelist.org
on the other. The whitelist site is actually a spoof, pointing out
that so far states have failed in their responsibility to create
such a database.
Of course, with only three ships Greenpeace does not have the
capacity to police the world's oceans. That is the job of
governments. We're hoping that our database will spur them into
action - including the creation of an official global blacklist of
fishing vessels, along with a whitelist of legitimate/legal fishing
vessels. In the mean time, we hope countries with widespread
pirate fishing in their waters - particularly developing country
coastal communities - will benefit from our blacklist database.
Visit the blacklist
Visit the fishing vessel blacklist.