Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

As Illegal fishing (official term in the EU (English ): Illegal, unreported and unregulated ( IUU) fishing, as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing ) is referred to in the deep-sea fishing, fishing by those vessels and crews of commercial reasons without will operate the required license, exceeds the concession granted in the license quota or specified incorrectly or not at the catches.

International bodies such as G8, EU, Interpol and the environmental program of the United Nations have acknowledged illegal fishing as an environmental crime.

The teams and their boats are often referred to in the media as pirate fishing, a term that is used in particular by environmental organizations such as Greenpeace as a slogan.

In inland fisheries, the phenomenon is significantly less pronounced. When fishing hobby speaks the vernacular of black fishing or fishing.

Background

To avoid overfishing of their exclusive economic zones (200 -mile ), put most of the states with coastal waters fishing quotas and assign each candidate a share of this quota by means of a license agreement. Fishing outside the exclusive economic zones is regulated by international treaties.

Problem

The pirate fishing circumvent international fisheries agreements by leaving register in flags of countries their fishing vessels or drive without flag, country code and signature. They have industrial fishing vessels and hunt preferably where controls are the exception, as in the Southern Ocean or West Africa, where governments do not have the means to control their coastal waters sufficient.

The shipowner sit, especially in Europe, Japan, the People's Republic of China and the United States. Greenpeace estimates that about 1,200 industrial fishing vessels operate illegal fishing.

Hazards

Violations of the quota system lead to

• Overfishing (main problem)
• A fall in prices by excess supply at the fish market and thus to economic losses for the licensed fishermen who meet their quotas
• Long term mean the ruin of the fishing industry in a region or worldwide
• Locally to the formation of piracy in the affected areas

Political effects of illegal fishing

Since the fall of the Somali government in 1991, the territorial waters of Somalia are no longer monitored. Since then operate foreign fishing trawlers, particularly from the EU, Russia and Asia illegal fishing in these waters. The invaders expelled the boats of local fishermen, whose occupants fired on with water cannons, clipping off their nets and took a matter of the loss of lives in purchasing. As the organization East African Seafarers ' Assistance Programme (SAP) reported that mediates in most of the hijackings off the Somali coast, illegal fishing, foreign pirate fishing is the root of piracy, as the local fishermen initially armed and tried to distribute. After maritime militias first applied illegally -fishing trawlers and have raised " license payments " for their black fish, including commercial vessels were hijacked later. In the meantime, benefit the illegal fishing off Somalia by the EU Operation Atalanta to protect the maritime coast of Somalia and the piracy off Somalia is a business of organized crime.

Film

• Andreas Orth: Duel in the North Sea. The hunt for pirate fishing documentary WDR, 2006