European fishing fleets accused of illegally netting tuna in Indian Ocean

theguardian.com:

European fishing fleets have been illegally netting tuna from dwindling stocks in the Indian Ocean, according to data presented to EU authorities and analysed by expert groups.

EU purse seine (a type of large net) fishing vessels were present in the waters of Indian Ocean coastal states, where they were likely to have carried out unauthorised catches, and have reported catches in the Chagos archipelago marine protected area and in Mozambique’s exclusive economic zone.

Two investigations were made of fishing in the Indian Ocean, one conducted by the group OceanMind and another by the charity Blue Marine Foundation along with Kroll, the corporate investigation company. The first report found evidence, from the publicly available data published by the EU from its fishing fleet from 2016 to 2020, that EU vessels fished without authorisation in the region, where the main catches include the skipjack, bigeye and yellowfin tuna species.

The second report, by Blue Marine Foundation and Kroll, examined data from ships’ monitoring software, called the automatic identification system (AIS), and found that some vessels in the region had switched it off, which can be an indication of unauthorised fishing taking place.

Populations of tuna are coming under increasing pressure, as industrialised fishing fleets cash in on the growing market for the popular fish. The expansion of tuna fisheries could lead to extinction, scientists have warned.

The latest NGO findings, presented to government representatives at a meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission in Seychelles this week, highlight the problem of illegal, unreported or unregulated (IUU) fishing around the world, and of EU vessels taking catches from the depleting stocks of developing