HAWAII (March 17, 2016) — The cost of illegal fishing in the western pacific may be much lower than believed. Previous estimates ranged up to $2.4-billion dollars a year. But this week, an independent, European funded study puts that figure at about a billion dollars a year, most of that in tuna. And, as we hear from Neal Conan in the Pacific News minute, the study also challenges beliefs, as to who’s responsible.
“We imagine vast fleets of pirate boats,” said James Movick, director General of the Forum Fisheries Agency. “The evidence doesn’t support that.”
The evidence was gathered over two years by an Australian company -MRAG Asia Pacific which concluded that the biggest culprits are licensed boats that underreport their catch. It put losses to pirates at just 4% of the total.