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Estimating illegal fishing from enforcement officers
C Josh Donlan1,2, Chris Wilcox3, Gloria M Luque4
1Advanced Conservation Strategies, Midway, UT, 84049, USA. jdonlan@advancedconservation.org.
Scientific Reports
|July 29, 2020
Summary
This study introduces a novel method for estimating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing by utilizing fisheries officers. This approach offers a cost-effective and rigorous way to monitor and combat IUU fishing globally.
Area of Science:
- Marine conservation science
- Fisheries management
- Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing
Background:
- Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing poses a significant threat to ocean sustainability.
- Accurately characterizing IUU fishing is difficult due to its covert nature and limitations of current monitoring methods.
- Existing approaches can be resource-intensive and sometimes controversial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a structured, transparent, and cost-effective process for estimating the level, structure, and characteristics of illegal fishing.
- To establish a national illegal fishing baseline for Chile, covering 20 fisheries representing approximately 70% of annual national landings.
- To assess the relative importance of illegal activities across different sectors, stakeholders, and infrastructure for selected fisheries.
Main Methods:
- Leveraging the existing capacity of fisheries officers to create a monitoring tool.
- Implementing a structured process to gather data and produce stand-alone estimates of illegal fishing.
- Applying the methodology to 20 fisheries in Chile to generate a national baseline and detailed analysis for four specific fisheries.
Main Results:
- A national illegal fishing baseline for Chile was established, quantifying illegal activity across 20 key fisheries.
- The study estimated the relative importance of illegal activities across sectors, stakeholders, and infrastructure for four fisheries.
- Results confirmed general patterns of illegality previously observed, while providing new, detailed information.
Conclusions:
- The developed approach offers government agencies a method to formalize institutional knowledge on illegal fishing.
- This method accounts for potential biases and reduces knowledge fragmentation, thereby improving enforcement effectiveness.
- Estimating illegal fishing directly through fisheries enforcement officers provides a complementary, cost-effective, rapid, and rigorous solution to measure and monitor IUU fishing.