Ocean Economy at Risk: Rise of Distant Water Fleets and Financial Secrecy

This article focuses on Illegal, unreported and nnregulated (IUU) fishing by distant water fleets. It is based on a study titled ‘Fishy Networks’, which exposed that Africa concentrates 48.9% of identified industrial and semi-industrial vessels involved in IUU fishing, leading to an economic loss of illicit financial flows of up to US$11.49 billion originating from the continent alone. The article argues that financial secrecy of vessels, the companies behind them, and their beneficial owners plays a key role in aggravating this problem, as even if actors are caught for offences that are considered to account for IUU fishing, the fines tend to be small, the instances are not reported publicly. IUU fishing does not tend to harm the reputation of the company in question, or enable for importing states to apply more robust supply chain legislation, or apply anti money laundering laws that also apply extraterritorially. Finally, it recommends greater financial transparency, supply chain and reporting transparency in the fishing industry to tackle this problem and bring those responsible to justice.