Mogadishu (AX) — A startling revelation has emerged from ENACT Africa, an EU-initiated program focused on thwarting the scourge of transnational organized crime within the continent. The fresh data paints a grim picture, spotlighting how illicit fishing activities are wreaking havoc on Somalia’s aquatic bounty, endangering the much-coveted yellowfin tuna, and unearthing glaring gaps in maritime management. It’s a real fishy business, if you ask me!
Could you imagine a more tantalizing prospect? Somalia, boasting the lengthiest coastline on the African mainland, along with gastronomy-friendly fishing grounds in the Indian Ocean, has ironically become a notorious playground for illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Outsiders, including those from China, Iran, and Pakistan, are going on a free-for-all, employing devastating techniques like bottom trawling and deploying fish-aggregating devices (FADs). It’s like watching a movie where the good guys simply can’t catch a break, enabling excesses that strip fish stocks bare and leave the once-thriving marine habitats in tatters. Critics voices rise in unison, pointing fingers at feeble maritime governance and rampant corruption. Poorly enforced contracts only pour gasoline on this raging fire.
Turns out that yellowfin tuna, which is every sushi chef’s dream, might not be so bountiful in the years to come. If the alarm bells sounded by experts are anything to go by, we’re staring at a frightful 70% decline over the centuries-old ten-year span. Rest in pieces, beloved tuna fish! The economic and food security impacts might be a rough sea to navigate. Officially overfished per the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC’s) 2015 decree, one has to wonder if the commission is equipped with a defective GPS, lost amidst influential member states, the European Union being but one, who seem more hindrance than help.
Put piracy next to Somalia and you might have built yourself a cliché, but the connection between illegal fishing and pirate activities along its coast cannot be ignored. For years, Somalia-based gangs have cited IUU fishing as their raison d’être. It’s one of those classic cases of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ until it isn’t anymore.
Decades of civil unrest and political instability have left Somali maritime governance incapacitated, a toothless tiger against misuse. The Somali Federal Fishery Law might make for a good bedtime read, but its real-life theatrics are often undermined by a practice that’s almost universally loathed—corruption—and conflicting interests from regional and federal quarters.
Prime example? Enter stage: the Northeastern State regional government, ever defiant of federal directives to withhold state fishing permits. They deem such measures contrary to resource-sharing agreements, only further complicating the opera of ivory tower governance, while foreign ships meander about sans permits, exacerbating the overfishing menace and environmental spoil.
2018 saw the stroke of an agreement allowing Chinese firms to fish within 24 nautical miles of Somalia’s coast, perceived by many as a certificate of exploitation. Fast forward a year, and reports spotlight the Liao Dong Yu fleet, a Chinese catch-all, gleefully disregarding these nautical limits. Clearly, politics makes for a strange bedfellow, with a senator and business magnate in cahoots, reportedly under the wings of Northeastern State President Said Abdullahi Deni.
Intrigue swirls around the opacity with which fishing contracts are awarded, emboldening illegal pursuits rather than quelling them. Reports abound of Chinese ships using big-boy toys like purse seines, longline vessels, and even dynamite to reel in the tuna catch. Fancy, right? These methods inflict deep, irreversible scars upon the already bleeding marine ecosystem, further imperiling the fragile earnings of local fishery-dependent communities.
Cross-border elements embellish the narrative of crime, tying illegal fishing activities to organized crime syndicates, like characters plucked from a James Bond film script, with whispers of money laundering, human trafficking, and other nefarious doings echoing in the background.
All isn’t lost at sea just yet! Efforts such as Somalia’s ban on federal water trawling and increased licensing transparency emerge as rays of hope. Collaborative strides with Turkey and Denmark alongside the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are fishing out offenders with guilty nets via fines and vessel confiscations. Out with the old policies, in with advanced tech-savvy monitoring, so say experts.
However, the choppy waters continue to surprise; Turkish vessels reportedly are still active, camouflaged as allies under bilateral agreements.
Robert McKee, a seasoned global maritime security expert and erstwhile advisor with the UNODC, echoed through ENACT the dire need for cohesive, coordinated responses to IUU fishing. He emphasized beefing up regional maritime monitoring, enlisting specialized task forces, rendering seizures, and chopping the horn of illegal fishing operations. Says McKee, ‘seizing illegal vessels, snatching offenders, and confiscating their fancy contraptions are but crucial steps amid turbulent currents, aiming to protect Somalia’s decimated yellowfin tuna stock.’
Report by Axadle
