FiskerForum
Monday May 30, 2022
While industry body Europêche is adamant that European
fishing vessels have not been active in Somalian and Indian waters, the Blue
Marine Foundation claims that Spanish-flagged tuna vessels fished in the waters
of Somalia in 2017-18 and India in 2018-19.
‘The report showing the locations of EU vessels is based on the findings of a
study commissioned by Blue Marine Foundation and undertaken by OceanMind – a
highly reputable organisation – which in turn was based on publicly-available
data reported by the EU and published by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission on
its website,’ the Blue Marine Foundation states.
‘Europeche claims that ‘No fishing took place from EU
vessels in any coastal state waters without agreement in place.’ We would like
to request that Europeche shares with us the access agreements that were in
place with Somalia and India when this fishing activity was reported by the EU.
There is evidence to suggest that some of these fleets are fishing in coastal
states’ waters without any kind of authorisation.’
Europêche’s response is that the AIS systems on which this
information is based are open source and easily hacked, in addition to which
fishing vessels in this region where piracy remains a major concern frequently
switch off AIS, often on the advice of naval forces that patrol waters off the
coast of Somalia – while the VMS monitoring every such vessel is fitted with
cannot be switched off, but this data is not publicly available.
‘VMS is managed and monitored directly by each country’s
administration,’ said Anne-France Mattlet of the Europêche Tuna Group, who
suggested that NGOs with concerns should contact the relevant national
authorities.
‘You could contact the flag states authorities, that is to
say the ministers in charge of fisheries in Spain, France, Seychelles and
Mauritius to get confirmation that the vessels flying their flags did not fish
in Somalian waters. You could in addition contact the IOTC Secretariat for more
information on the data they publish and how to use and interpret them.’