Saving Seafood

Fleets of Force

November 18, 2023 — Beijing says many of these boats are just fishing. But they bristle with machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and high-velocity water cannons. They’re here for intimidation

This fleet, built largely with government money, helps China dominate one of the most crucial and disputed waterways in the world: the South China Sea.

Working in tandem with an aggressive coast guard, these militarized fishing boats assert Beijing’s presence more than 1,000 miles from the Chinese mainland.

The boats patrol the tiny, disputed Spratly islets. Their reinforced steel hulls make it easy to ram smaller boats. They swarm other countries’ outposts and squat on shoals within sight of foreign coastlines.

In confrontations with China’s militarized fleet, like this one on Oct. 22, the Philippines’ smaller boats don’t stand a chance. China’s muscle is crucial to its de facto control over the South China Sea.

Read the full article at the New York Times

Fights over illegal fishing lead to armed conflict, deaths

March 31, 2022 — Around the world, from Sri Lanka to Argentina to the South China Sea, the ocean has become an expanding front in the armed conflict between nations over illegal fishing and overfishing, practices that deplete a vulnerable food source for billions of people worldwide. Jessica Spijkers, a researcher for Australia’s national science agency, found a rise in global fishing conflicts when she studied a four-decade period ending in 2016. Conflicts this century, she said, often involved claims of illegal and overfishing. Her analysis included nonviolent disputes that sometimes precede the outbreak of violence.

An Associated Press review of conflict databases compiled by non-governmental organizations, government tallies, and media reports found in the past five years more than 360 instances of state authorities ramming or shooting at foreign fishing boats, sometimes leading to deaths.

During that same time, another 850 foreign fishing boats were seized by authorities and systematically crushed, blown up, or sunk.

The figures cover incidents across six continents but are likely an undercount since no single entity tracks violent conflicts over fishing rights worldwide. The AP analysis did not include routine citations and arrests but focused on where and how violence has escalated in fishing grounds around the world.

Environmental and national security experts say countries that depend on fishing both as a source of food and commerce are at risk of greater conflict in the coming years. Already, industrial fishing boats extract droves of fish from the sea, with distant-water fleets from China and other countries roaming far beyond their domestic waters in search of stocks that have been depleted closer to home.

The search for new sources of fish comes as nations are tasked with feeding growing populations and climate change further endangers ocean life.

“It is getting significantly worse,” said Johan Bergenas, a World Wildlife Fund expert on oceans who first warned of a rise in global fishing conflicts five years ago.

“We are now seeing armed conflict and tensions and strains as a result of fish stocks and competition over in West Africa, in the West Indian Ocean, in Latin America,” he said. “There’s going to be conflicts and armed engagements over these incredibly important fish stocks around the world.”

Read the full story from the Associated Press

 

Overwhelmed by Chinese Fleets, Filipino Fishermen ‘Protest and Adapt’

July 12, 2021 — The fishermen along the western coast of Luzon Island, in the Philippines, have known for generations that the seas, the tides and the weather can determine their fortunes. More recently, they have added China to that list.

Scarborough Shoal, a nearby triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the South China Sea, was once the source of bountiful catches of large reef fish. But the fishermen are no longer allowed to go near it.

“The Chinese have already swallowed Karburo whole, but that area is really ours,” said Johnny Sonny Geruela, using the Filipino name for Scarborough. Mr. Geruela lives in Masinloc, a small fishing community just 124 nautical miles from the shoal.

China’s Coast Guard has had ships anchored near Scarborough for almost a decade. Five years ago this week, an international court ruled that the territory was well within Manila’s exclusive economic zone, and invalidated China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea. Beijing has effectively ignored the ruling and expanded its presence in the region.

Filipino fishermen like Mr. Geruela now avoid the shoal, where they once sheltered during storms, exchanged greetings and cigarettes, and harvested the abundant reef fish. And the lessons of Scarborough are playing out elsewhere in the South China Sea, as China continues to flex its muscle on the water and pursue power through a campaign of steady provocation.

Read the full story at The New York Times

Water Wars Special: How IUU Fishing Increases the Risk of Conflict

January 28, 2021 — Illegal, unreported and unregistered (IUU) fishing, a global issue that many experts attribute to large state subsidies for fisheries, is more than simply an environmental or economic concern. Such activity heightens the risk of conflict at sea.

Most notably, China’s expanding fishing fleet—called the distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet—has precipitated tensions around the world. In 2016, an Argentine naval vessel sank a Chinese fishing boat illegally trawling in its waters, and the Argentine Coast Guard seized another Chinese-flagged vessel in May 2020. The vessel had turned off its identification system, illegally entered the Argentine exclusive economic zone (EEZ) at night, and carried 300 tons of fish in its hold. Similar incidents have occurred in the East China Sea. A South Korean attempt to interdict Chinese IUU fishing turned deadly in 2016, and Seoul recently announced enhanced efforts to seize Chinese fishing vessels illegally operating within its EEZ.

On Jan. 18, the World Trade Organization (WTO) reconvened negotiations for an agreement on fishing subsidies. Such a deal could stabilize global fish stocks, reduce IUU fishing and mitigate a potential source of maritime conflict. But an agreement is unlikely to come easily— geopolitical tensions and conflicting interests among major fishing powers have complicated subsidies negotiations since the 2001 Doha Round.

Four years ago, the WTO set 2020 as the deadline for an agreement to eliminate subsidies that promote overcapacity and IUU fishing. Although negotiators failed to meet the 2020 target, WTO leadership remains optimistic that efforts will prove successful in 2021. However, in a brief for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Alice Tipping and Tristan Irschlinger outlined several issues that may impede success. The application of “special and differential treatment” for China remains one contentious question, and its resolution implicates maritime security in the South China Sea and beyond.

Read the full story at Lawfare

Pacific Island Nations Wary of Chinese Fishing Fleets

December 21, 2020 — Long a topic discussed in connection with the South China Sea, illegal Chinese fishing vessels are of increasing concern for Pacific Island nations.

As recently as early this week, the archipelago nation of Palau, east of the Philippines and north of New Guinea, announced that it had intercepted and detained a Chinese fishing vessel and six smaller boats in its territorial waters after it was confirmed the vessel had entered unlawfully and was illegally fishing sea cucumber.

The fishing vessel was apprehended in Helen Reef, Palau’s most southernmost region, by a Guardian-class patrol boat that Australia had delivered to Palau in September.

“They did have sea cucumber on there… it’s estimated about 500 pounds (225 kilograms),” Victor Remengesau, director of Palau’s division of marine law and enforcement, told reporters. “It’s unlawful entry. We may care about COVID and the spread of COVID, but we can’t just let people do whatever they want, and disguise [illegal activity].”

Read the full story at The Diplomat

Ocean acidification causing coral ‘osteoporosis’ on iconic reefs

August 28, 2020 — In a paper published Aug. 27, 2020, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers show a significant reduction in the density of coral skeleton along much of the Great Barrier Reef — the world’s largest coral reef system — and also on two reefs in the South China Sea, which they attribute largely to the increasing acidity of the waters surrounding these reefs since 1950.

“This is the first unambiguous detection and attribution of ocean acidification’s impact on coral growth,” says lead author and WHOI scientist Weifu Guo. “Our study presents strong evidence that 20th century ocean acidification, exacerbated by reef biogeochemical processes, had measurable effects on the growth of a keystone reef-building coral species across the Great Barrier Reef and in the South China Sea. These effects will likely accelerate as ocean acidification progresses over the next several decades.”

Roughly a third of global carbon dioxide emissions are absorbed by the ocean, causing an average 0.1 unit decline in seawater pH since the pre-industrial era. This phenomenon, known as ocean acidification, has led to a 20 percent decrease in the concentration of carbonate ions in seawater. Animals that rely on calcium carbonate to create their skeletons, such as corals, are at risk as ocean pH continues to decline. Ocean acidification targets the density of the skeleton, silently whittling away at the coral’s strength, much like osteoporosis weakens bones in humans.

“The corals aren’t able to tell us what they’re feeling, but we can see it in their skeletons,” said Anne Cohen, a WHOI scientist and co-author of the study. “The problem is that corals really need the strength they get from their density, because that’s what keeps reefs from breaking apart. The compounding effects of temperature, local stressors, and now ocean acidification will be devastating for many reefs.”

Read the full story at Science Daily

Indonesia’s President Visits Island in Waters Disputed by China

January 9, 2020 — President Joko Widodo visited an island in waters disputed by China on Wednesday to assert Indonesia’s sovereignty amid a standoff between Indonesian and Chinese vessels.

The confrontation began in mid-December when a Chinese coast guard vessel and fishing boats, entered waters in Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone, off the coast of the northern Natuna islands, prompting Jakarta to summon Beijing’s ambassador.

Widodo told reporters on Natuna Besar island that the disputed waters belong solely to Indonesia.

“We have a district here, a regent, and a governor here,” he said. “There are no more debates. De facto, de jure, Natuna is Indonesia.”

Widodo also met with fishermen on the island. Earlier this week, Indonesia deployed more ships and fighter jets to patrol the surrounding waters. Nursyawal Embun, the director of sea operations at the Maritime Security Agency, said as of Wednesday morning that two Chinese coast guard vessels remained, while 10 Indonesian ships were on patrol.

Read the full story from Reuters at The New York Times

Tensions flare as China claims historical right to Indonesian waters in the South China Sea

January 8, 2020 — Tensions are flaring on the waters of the South China Sea as a sovereignty dispute between Indonesia and China heats up.

Tension between the two countries rose following a series of naval maneuvers by the Chinese coast guard and Chinese fishing vessels in the  waters off the coast of the disputed northern islands of Natuna, The Jakarta Post reported 5 January. The islands are located between the Malaysian peninsula and Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Indonesia Mobilizes Fishermen in Stand-Off With China

January 6, 2020 — Indonesia will mobilize fishermen to join warships in the South China Sea to help defend against Chinese vessels, the government said on Monday, as the biggest stand-off with China for years escalated off Southeast Asia’s largest country.

In an unusually strong statement, President Joko Widodo told reporters: “There is no negotiation when it comes to our sovereignty.”

The stand-off since last month in the northern Natuna islands, where a Chinese coastguard vessel has accompanied Chinese fishing vessels, has soured the generally friendly relationship between Jakarta and Beijing.

Indonesia’s chief security minister, Mahfud MD, told reporters that around 120 fishermen from the island of Java would be sent to the Natuna islands, some 1,000 km (600 miles) to the north.

Read the full story from Reuters at the New York Times

Your seafood dinner could be tied to slavery on fishing vessels, says journalist

November 13, 2019 — Desperate to escape a life of slavery on a fishing ship in the South China Sea, Cambodian Lang Long took his chances — and jumped overboard.

He was trying to swim to a nearby vessel, but his attempt was short-lived, said investigative journalist Ian Urbina.

“They caught him, brought him back, and from then forward he was shackled by the neck when he was not working,” Urbina told The Current’s interim host Laura Lynch.

He added that after his escape attempt, Long was also routinely beaten.

Urbina interviewed Long for a 2015 New York Times investigation into human trafficking and slavery on fishing vessels, which he described as roach- and rat-infested and men and boys are worked 20 hours a day, six days a week.

His new book, The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across The Last Untamed Frontier, returns to the topic of human trafficking and slavery on the high seas, which Urbina said is driven in part by the economics of the fishing industry.

Read the full story at CBC News