Indonesia advances in effort to globally curb illegal fishing

Supports are mounting for Indonesia to bring illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) fishing into a higher level of discussion in the United Nations (UN), as many countries have shared similar concerns on the issue in the plenary meeting and called for real actions.

However, much needs to be done before the world officially acknowledging such a practice as 'Transnational Organized Fisheries Crime' since additional steps would be required — especially at the lobbying level — to gather votes for any UN resolution on that.

In the partnership dialogue entitled ‘Making Fisheries Sustainable’, all 33 delegations of the UN Ocean Conference who have been approved to present their official interventions were generally of the view that illegal fishing must be curbed for it destroyed vital marine habitats, and that the US$35 billion in harmful subsidies must be eliminated as it led to overfishing.

“We need to make a more concerted effort to tackle such things as illegal fishing, under reporting and harmful subsidies that result in over-capacity,” Canada’s Fisheries, Oceans and Coast Guard Minister Dominic LeBlanc said at the UN headquarters, New York, on Wednesday.

LeBlanc and Senegal’s Fisheries and Maritime Economy Minister Oumar Guèye as the co-chaired of the meeting would present the summaries of the meeting at the closing plenary meeting. The conclusion will be included in the final report of the UN Ocean Conference that resulted to several recommendations.

In her intervention, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti said that there should be a designated body to ensure that “the right of oceans” to be protected was not bothered by political change or agendas.

The high seas meanwhile needed to be better managed so that distant-country fishing did not harm resource sustainability, she said, adding that the General Assembly should, in its resolutions, acknowledge transnational fisheries crimes.

“We need to realize that the crimes that take place at the sea are mostly involving fishing vessels including human trafficking, drugs trafficking, illegal fuel transaction, smuggling of goods and endangered species, and many others,” Susi said

The UN members, she added, must establish an independent expert team that would recommend the plan to institutionalize transnational organized fisheries crime and to push its acknowledgement under the General Assembly.

The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) special representatives Emanuel Roux said that his organization had been involved in several operations in the fisheries sector, such as in the Caribbean which led to the arrest in July 2016 of a vessel carrying out illegal fishing.

“Through “Project Scale”, INTERPOL agents in Lyon, with experience in fisheries crime, carried out criminal analysis of illegal fishing activities which were often linked to human trafficking,” he explained.

In regards to the notion to classify the IUU fishing as transnational organized crime, INTERPOL had actually the capacity to do the investigation of such cases, as it offered a holistic approach, providing and reading notices, and sharing information on the modalities of fisheries crime.

“There was also a secure network that linked states and provided investigative support to certain cases,” Roux explained.

While all of the delegations wanted the illegal fishing to be eradicated and even the INTERPOL had said that it had the capacity to investigate the transnational fisheries crime, none of the 59 UN countries members in the meeting were explicitly mentioned about any plan or notion to classify the practice as ‘transnational organized crime.’

The Coordinating Maritime Affairs Minister’s deputy for maritime sovereignty Arif Havas Oegroseno said that a lot had to be done before seeing any UN resolution issued, acknowledging the IUU fishing as transnational organized fisheries crime.

“Even if the delegations have expressed that they agree to fight against illegal fishing, do they have secured mandate from their government to give a vote on that issue [transnational organized fisheries crime]? We need to dispatch our lobbying team for that, and it’s not easy,” he said.

Minister Susi admitted that good long term diplomacy was needed to assure that Indonesia was not the only one to leap too far by proposing any resolution on the transnational fisheries crime. As for now, Norway and Sweden have become Indonesia’s consistent main backers on the issue.

“Consistency is the key. It is a long way to go, indeed, because we have to lobby the UN members to secure more than 51 percent of votes to support our notion. If we success with the resolution, then the INTERPOL will defend all countries, including small ones, in fisheries crime,” she said.