Fishing from south to north - the story of the Kerguelen

On September 20, 2005, Greenpeace confronted the high seas bottom trawler Kerguelen fishing illegally in the international waters of the Barents Sea known as the ‘Loophole’. At the time, available information indicated that the vessel was flagged to Togo, despite contradictory statements by the Captain and in the ship’s paperwork[1]. The vessel is known to have fished under several different flags in recent years and has been blacklisted as a vessel which has engaged in illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) or ‘pirate’ fishing since 2005 by the Northeast Atlantic Fisheries Commission, the European Union[2], and in 2006, by Iceland[3]. The Kerguelen’s captain admitted to Greenpeace that he was knowingly bottom trawling for deep-sea fish with no legal quota and therefore engaged in illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing.