- EURASIAREVIEW.COM - A la une - 04/Jul 23:37

Namibia Struggles To Contain Illegal Fishing By Foreign Trawlers

It is around midnight and a Namibian vessel’s radar detects a foreign trawler notorious for illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing entering Namibian waters. The Namibian vessel communicates with the country’s fisheries monitoring center in Walvis Bay and the Navy and fisheries department are alerted. However, there are no law enforcement vessels near the Namibia-Angola maritime border and the foreign vessel evades authorities. This scenario unfolds routinely and no suspicious vessels have recently been apprehended and prosecuted in Namibia, reported senior researcher Carina Bruwer of Enhancing Africa’s Response to Transnational Organized Crime project. Namibian waters are regularly targeted by foreign fishing vessels, particularly Chinese, that engage in illegal activities to plunder valuable horse mackerel and other species, such as hake, kingklip and dentex. The country loses more than $83.7 million annually to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, driving food insecurity and threatening the jobs of more than 18,000 people who work in Namibian fisheries. China is the world’s worst illegal fishing offender, according to the IUU Fishing Risk Index. Of the top 10 companies engaged in illegal fishing globally, eight are from China. Matti Amukwa, chairperson of the Confederation of Namibian Fishing Associations, has called for urgent action to stop illegal fishing. “For too long have we allowed outsiders to rape our Namibian fish stocks,” Amukwa said in a letter to the Ministry of Fisheries seen by The Namibian newspaper. “We need to take action now and stop the damage being done by well-known IUU vessels … We cannot rely on other countries’ governments to stop the pilferage of our resources.” Foreign fishing boats are notorious for abusing local rules to file a foreign-owned and operated fishing vessel onto an African registry and fish in local waters. This is known as “flagging in” or flying a “flag of convenience.” It helps a vessel’s owners dodge financial charges and other regulations. Many of the vessels flying flags of convenience in Namibia come from Angola. During a closed fishing season in 2022, officials seized a Russian trawler belonging to a Chinese company with 300 tons of horse mackerel aboard near Angola’s Namibe Province, Bruwer reported. Angola loses about $227 million annually to illegal fishing. While foreign vessels are not authorized to fish in Angolan waters, illegal fishing operators commonly use shell companies, front companies and joint venture agreements that make it difficult to investigate and prosecute ships accused of illegal fishing. Armando Filipe, a member of an Angolan artisanal fishing cooperative, decried the presence of foreign trawlers in his country’s waters. “The trawlers themselves catch an exaggerated amount of what should be caught and, in many cases, they do not take advantage of it, they throw it back into the sea,” Filipe told Voice of America. Offending vessels in the region also fly flags of convenience from Cameroon, a popular flag for Russians. These vessels commonly turn off their Automatic Identification System shortly before crossing the maritime border into Namibia. After robbing Namibia of fish, they reactivate the identification system and return to Angola, where the catch is illegally transshipped. When illegal fishing vessels are denied port access in Namibia, they are known to dock in Cape Town. Because they carry no fish, it is difficult for authorities to gather evidence of wrongdoing. Bruwer wrote that the recently established Southern African Development Community Atlantic Project is a promising collaborative effort to address illegal fishing. This project aims to facilitate cross-border cooperation to address illegal fishing and other crimes in Angola, Namibia and South Africa. It has developed a risk register to help countries identify previous suspicious activity before vessels request to enter ports. “To reach its full potential, this cooperation must be complemented by increased law enforcement capacity at sea, states refusing to flag or give fishing licenses to suspicious vessels, and the development of policies and practices related to disclosing vessel ownership to ensure accountability,” Bruwer wrote.