IUU fishing is often an organized criminal activity, professionally coordinated and truly global. For example a pirate vessel may be owned by a company in the Carribbean, that is owned itself by someone in Spain; it might have a Russian skipper and crew from the Philippines or mainland China; and it may be flagged to Togo. The ventures use various strategies to evade apprehension and avoid laws and agreements to protect fish populations and other marine resources.
The pirates disguise the origin of their illegal catch so well that it is often sold legitimately into consumer markets - mainly in Japan, the EU, the US, and other developed countries.
IUU fishing has enormous consequences. South Africa, for example, has reportedly lost US$290 million since the mid-1990s to
toothfish poachers alone, and legitimate toothfish fishing has been virtually wiped out. One of the country’s toothfish stocks collapsed after just three years of pirate fishing.
The poachers are not just decimating valuable fish populations: they are also killing tens of thousands of marine animals as
bycatch and destroying delicate habitats through their unregulated use of damaging, and sometimes illegal,
fishing practices.
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