IUU Fishing : Cause and Effect

IUU fishing (Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated Fishing) is unauthorized fishing activities which  the activities are  not reported to the competent fisheries management institutions, also unregulated in laws. Illegal fishing refers to activity which is conducted by national or foreign vessels in waters under the jurisdiction of a state, without the permission of that state, or in contravention of  its laws and regulations. It is also conducted by vessels flying the flag of States party to a relevant regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO) but operating in contravention of the conservation. Unreported fishing is usually referring to activities which have not been reported, or have been misreported to the relevant national authority in contravention of national laws and regulations or undertaken in the area of competence of a relevant RFMO which have not been reported or have been misreported in contravention of the reporting procedures of that organization. Unregulated fishing means that in fishing ground, the fish or fish resources are caught without thinking about sustainability of the resources.

IUU fishing can be happened by some factors. There is limitation of fishing equipment and lack of national fishing fleet, law enforcement at sea and criminal provisions, also limitation of fishing tools. In developing country just like Indonesia, IUU fishing is caused by limitation of fishing equipment and lack of fishing fleet, law enforcement at sea and criminal provisions. In Indonesia, case of IUU fishing can be found at eastern Indonesia Sea for example Arafura Sea. The fishermen catch fish there with only limited equipment. In addition, they also catch fish by traditional equipment so it affects to fish catch. The fish catch will be less than catch fish by modern fish equipment such as echo sounder and fish finder. Fish finder is usually used to determine schools of fish target whereas echo sounder is used to determine fishing ground. Echo sounder and fish finder will facilitate fish catching so it will increase fish catch. Limited and non modern equipment definitely will enlarge another fisherman’s opportunity to catch fish at Indonesia in big scale. Lack of fishing fleet influences to monitoring and controlling another country fishing boat and also complicate in catching up illegal fishing ship. Besides that, lack of law enforcement at sea and criminal provisions in Indonesia will aggravate Indonesian fishery condition because it will enlarge opportunity of illegal fishing and IUU fishing case will often happen. Moreover the perpetrators of IUU fishing are not wary to do it because of criminal provisions lack. Developed country is usually identified as perpetrators of IUU fishing because they have full and modern fishing equipments such as Australian and Malaysia. It is not only rumor but it is fact. Both countries are often looked catch fish in Indonesian sea area. It can be identified from their ship flag. When Indonesian fishing fleet will catch up they lost because of lack national fishing fleet.

Case of IUU fishing gives negative effects to Indonesian people. There are some impacts from IUU fishing. Overfishing is one of them. Overfishing is a non-sustainable use of the oceans because it catches too much fish for the system to support leads to an overall degradation to the system.Overfishing occurs when fish are caught faster than they can reproduce, and for many scientists it has become one of the greatest impacts of people activity on oceans. Overfishing increases the vulnerability of  ocean ecosystems and may contribute to the decline of other marine species including birds and mammals. In another literature, Lincoln (2008) said that overfishing occurs when fishing activities reduce fish stocks below an acceptable level. This can occur in any body of water from a pond to the oceans. Ultimately overfishing can lead to resource depletion in cases of subsidised fishing, low biological growth rates and critical low biomass levels (e.g. by critical depensation growth properties), for example overfishing of sharks has led to the upset of entire marine ecosystems. Furthermore overfishing can decrease sea organism population which is affect to rare or extinct some fish species.  The ability of a fishery to recover after overfishing depends on whether the ecosystem conditions are suitable for the recovery. Dramatic changes in species composition can result in an ecosystem shift which influence equilibrium energy flows.

            IUU fishing can be solved by Increasing of fishing budget funds to complete facilities such as fishing equipment (fish finder/echo sounder) for fisherman and increasing national fishing fleet to monitor another country fishing ship through VMS (Vessel Monitoring System). VMS is not only monitoring vessel movements relating to: the ship's position, velocity ship, trajectory path (tracking) ship and the time of the violation but also

 VMS tracking results can be used as materials analysis to determine abuse of fishing gear, fishing area violations, practices transshipment, the compliance report at the fishing  port. It also helps to provide position information to the ship in some cases crimes at sea (lost contact, hijacking, accident) and can be used as source code in fish resource management: know the results fishing effort, knowing the level of resource utilization, and become a material management of fish resources management policy because it can be integrated with satellite radar systems or other detection devices to identify the ships that do not have a transmitter (an indication of the vessel illegal). It can be taken a conclusion that IUU fishing give negative effect such as overfishing which can be solved by increasing national fishing fleet to monitor  another country fishing ship through VMS (Vessel Monitoring System).