A report by two researchers at the Stockholm University-based Stockholm Resilience Centre, now available in English, describes how increasingly complex chains of trade in fisheries products provide for increasingly questionable practices
The report, titled “Roving Bandits in Modern Fisheries“ studies the trade in what it now terms a truly global commodity. The same goes for those who provide the catches – modern fishing vessels have the capacity to rove wide areas, staying out weeks on end. This, the report said, creates conditions for a very flexible fishing industry, “particularly if it chooses not to follow existing rules”.
What the report calls “Roving Bandits” – global players in the field of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishery – is a phenomenon that illustrates the kind of difficulties even authorities in nations with well developed institutions will have to deal with, it says, concluding that the need for “political power to act” is dire.
At a seminar in Stockholm in connection with the publication of the study, former UN Under-Secretary-General and Legal Counsel Hans Corell noted that a basic condition for dealing with the problem of global illegal fishing is to “restore respect for international law”. In that sense, he added, the situation has “totally deteriorated” over the last few years.