Dark fishing: Greenpeace investigation uncovers illegal activity

An interesting report from Al Jazeera explains how a Greenpeace investigation uncovered illegal fishing activity in the Atlantic Ocean:

It is estimated one in five fish brought to markets is illegally caught, often by a so-called “dark” fishing fleet. This refers to vessels that switch off their satellite tracking to hide their activities in far-flung parts of the world’s oceans. Now a Greenpeace investigation has uncovered the scale of the problem and the need for greater ocean protection. Al Jazeera‘s Nick Clark reports.

Al Jazeera YouTube Channel

The story follows the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise as it follows a vessel which has “gone dark” and turned off its tracking systems.

They then travel to a giant refrigerated ship, and discover the vessel they had been following unloading into it. These large refrigerated ships can stay at sea for long periods, and allows the fishing vessels to stay at sea, without returning to port. Importantly, this avoids catches from being declared, and creates a situation where over-fishing may occur.

The report also showed the Greenpeace ship Esporanza which is operating in the Southern Ocean.

The report speculates that 14 million tonnes of unreported fish catches are traded globally, each year, and that this amounts to $23 billion.

Greenpeace argue that this situation requires a strong global fishing treaty, to ensure that there are no longer unregulated waters allowing this type of “loophole” to be exploited in the future, damaging fish stocks which may never recover.


In This Story: Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world’s oceans, with an area of about 106,460,000 km². It covers approximately 20 percent of Earth’s surface and about 29 percent of its water surface area.

The Atlantic Ocean occupies an elongated, S-shaped basin extending longitudinally between Europe and Africa to the east, and the Americas to the west.

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In This Story: Southern Ocean

The Southern Ocean, also known as the Antarctic Ocean or the Austral Ocean, comprises the southernmost waters of the World Ocean, generally taken to be south of 60° S latitude and encircling Antarctica.

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