Palau Legal News: ROP Burns Illegal Unlicensed Vietnamese Fishing Boats . . . .
Serial # 07-067
06/11/2015
Office of the President
Deputy Press Secretary
Olkeriil Kazuo
Palau Authorities Catch and Burn Illegal ‘Blue Boat’ Fishing Vessels
Vietnamese fishers arrested as island nation gets tough on enforcement
Palau authorities burned four Vietnamese “Blue Boat” vessels today that were caught fishing illegally off of Kayangel Island. The unauthorized boats were discovered in a protected area with over 8 metric tons of sea cucumbers and reef fish on board. The fishing crew of 77 men will be loaded onto two unburned Blue Boats with enough fuel and provisions to get back to Vietnam. Since 2014, 15 Blue Boats from Vietnam have been captured stealing over 25 metric tons of Palau’s marine species for the black market in Asia.
“We have a simple message for those who try to steal Palau’s marine resources: We will not tolerate poachers in our ocean. Palau is working with our military, diplomacy, and NGO partners from around the world to get tough on illegal fishers and protect our food security,” said President Tommy E. Remengesau Jr. “When the Palau National Marine Sanctuary becomes law, it will be even easier to deter, detect, and interdict pirate fishing. Palau is simply no longer an option when it comes to poaching. This message goes to the captain and crews of these vessels. Palau guarantees, you will return with nothing. Captains will be prosecuted and jailed. Boats will be burned. Nothing will be gained from poaching in Palau. From one fisherman to another, respect Palau.”
Last month, the Office of the President hosted a workshop with The Pew Charitable Trusts and Scripps Institution of Oceanography to develop a comprehensive enforcement plan for Palau. Maritime surveillance experts from the United States, Australia, Japan, and the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency participated in the three-day event to develop strict enforcement strategies for the proposed National Marine Sanctuary. The plan will also assist Palau in preparing for emerging environmental threats like typhoons, sea-level rise, and drought.
“Illegal fishing is a major threat to Palau, given its location as a critical gateway to the Pacific,” said Seth Horstmeyer of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program. “With a no-tolerance policy and growing enforcement capabilities, illegal fishing will be stopped in Palau.”
As the new enforcement strategy is implemented, Palau will continue to strengthen its response to illegal fishing regardless of scale. On Jan. 26, 2015, Palau Marine Law Enforcement, in partnership with Pew, used Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking to successfully apprehend a Taiwanese longline vessel suspected of unauthorized fishing activity. The vessel was found with 304 shark carcasses and several hundred shark fins on board, and was required to pay a $100,000 fine. Penalties will become significantly higher and punishment more strict when the Palau National Marine Sanctuary is launched.
Worldwide, it is estimated that illegal fishers steal up to 108,000 pounds of fish from the ocean every minute, which averages to approximately 1 in 5 fish caught in the wild. These activities threaten the health of the ocean, the livelihoods of legitimate fishers, and food security for island nations.
------------------------------------------------------------
Palau burns Vietnamese boats caught fishing illegally
Associated Press
ELAINE KURTENBACH
June 12, 2015
In this photo taken Wednesday, June 10, 2015 and released by the Government of the Republic of Palau, Vietnamese fishermen sit on their fishing ships anchored at the Marine Law Enforcement Division Port in Koror, Palau after being caught fishing illegally in the waters of the country.
The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats of Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters. Palau's president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning, June 12, 2015. He hopes to turn most of the island nation's territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists. (The Government of the Republic of Palau via AP)
TOKYO (AP) - The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats of Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters.
Palau's president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning. He hopes to turn most of the island nation's territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists.
"We wanted to send a very strong message. We will not tolerate any more these pirates who come and steal our resources," Remengesau said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Washington, D.C., where he was visiting.
The country created the world's first shark sanctuary in 2009, but until recently had only one patrol boat to help protect its great hammerheads, leopard sharks and more than 130 other species of shark and rays fighting extinction.
FILE - In this June 13, 2009 file photo, children play at a resort beach in Ngerkebesang, Palau. The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats of Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters. Palau's president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning, June 12, 2015. He hopes to turn most of the island nation's territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye, File)
The four boats destroyed Friday were among 15 Palau authorities have caught fishing illegally in their waters since last year with loads of sharks and shark fins, lobsters, sea cucumbers and reef fish. Several of the boats that it seized, stripped of their fishing gear, are due to carry 77 crew members of the boats back to Vietnam.
Remengesau said that the stream of poachers showed that just stripping the rogue boats of their nets and confiscating their catches was not enough
FILE - In this June 20, 2009 file photo, the Palau Capital building is seen in Melekeok, Palau.
"I think it's necessary to burn the boats," he said.
Palau, about 600 miles (970 kilometers) miles east of the Philippines, is one of the world's smallest countries, its 20,000 people scattered across a tropical archipelago of 250 islands that is considered a biodiversity hotspot. In 2012, its Rock Islands Southern Lagoon was named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Driven by rising demand from China and elsewhere in Asia, overfishing threatens many species of fish. With 621,600 square kilometers (240,000 square miles) of territorial waters, including its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, extending 200 miles (320 kilometers) from its coastline, Palau is battling to prevent poaching of its sea life by fishermen from across southeast Asia.
Despite progress in tracing sources of fish sold to consumers, about a fifth of the global market for marine products caught and sold, or about $23.5 billion, is caught illegally.
Advances in telecommunications and vessel tracking technology have improved surveillance, but enforcing restrictions on unauthorized fishing is costly and difficult, especially given the many "pockets" of high seas in the area.
"There's a lot of opportunity for illegal fishing and other transnational crime. It's a challenge," said Seth Horstmeyer, campaigns director for The Pew Charitable Trusts' Global Ocean Legacy program. High seas pockets, beyond the jurisdiction of any government, account for nearly two-thirds of all ocean areas.
From Palau to Japan is a vast expanse of seas that nobody controls and nobody owns, areas that serve as refuges for illegal fishing vessels.
The Vietnamese fishermen tend to prowl shallows seas and reefs in search of sea cucumbers and reef fish and then flee back into those deeper waters to evade capture, Horstmeyer said.
One way to counter that tactic is to create a "geofence" using vessel identification systems that could trigger alerts when vessels cross into national waters.
Nearby Indonesia also is taking harsher action, recently blowing up and sinking 41 foreign fishing vessels from China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, as a warning against poaching in the country's waters.
In Hanoi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh recently told reporters the government was seeking to protect the rights of the fishermen. He urged other governments to "render humanitarian treatment toward the Vietnamese fishing trawlers and fishermen on the basis of international law as well as humanitarian treatment toward fishermen who were in trouble at sea."
While burning and sinking such ships seems drastic, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has backed such moves, ruling that countries can be held liable for not taking necessary measures to prevent illegal, unreported or unregulated, so-called IUU, fishing operations by their vessels in the waters of other countries.
In a report on IUU fishing last year, the Indonesia government outlined a slew of tactics used by poachers, including fake use of Indonesian flags on foreign vessels, forgery of documents and use of bogus fishing vessels using duplicate names and registration numbers of legitimate ships.
Poachers "go where the risk of being discovered is lowest, said Johanne Fischer, New Zealand-based executive secretary at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, which works on conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources in the South Pacific Ocean.
"Part of the problem is the mafia type of the thinking of the industry of just trying to make money. It's human nature, whenever you have possibility to make money with illegal activities. It's the same in the ocean."
As Palau's plan for a national marine sanctuary moves through its legislature, other Pacific countries and territories are taking similar measures.
Britain is preparing to make the Pitcairn Islands, home to descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty, the world's largest continuous marine reserve at 834,000 square kilometers (322,000 square miles).
Last year, the U.S. government announced it was expanding protected areas in three areas - Johnston Atoll, Wake Atoll, and Jarvis Island -of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to encompass about 1.05 million square kilometers (405,000 square miles) of non-contiguous sanctuaries.
As it gears up for stricter enforcement, Palau is consulting with Pew, Japan's Sasakawa Peace Foundation and some foreign navies on ways to better police its waters using land-based radar, aerial surveillance and satellite identification systems.
https://www.yahoo.com/style/s/palau-burns-vietnamese-boats-caught-fishing-illegally-024316303.html
----------------------------------------------
Palau burns Vietnamese boats caught fishing illegally
Columns of black smoke rise from four Vietnamese boats in the waters off Palau Friday, June 12, 2015. The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, set fire to the four boats caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters. Palau’s President Tommy Remengesau Jr. hopes to turn most of the island nation’s territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists. (Jeff Barabe/The Pew Charitable Trusts via AP) (Associated Press)
By Elaine Kurtenbach | AP June 12 at 10:41 AM
TOKYO - The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats belonging to Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters.
Palau’s president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning. He hopes to turn most of the island nation’s territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists.
“We wanted to send a very strong message. We will not tolerate any more these pirates who come and steal our resources,” Remengesau said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Washington, D.C., where he was visiting.
The country created the world’s first shark sanctuary in 2009, but until recently had only one patrol boat to help protect its great hammerheads, leopard sharks and more than 130 other species of shark and rays fighting extinction.
The four boats destroyed Friday were among 15 Palau authorities have caught fishing illegally in their waters since last year with loads of sharks and shark fins, lobsters, sea cucumbers and reef fish. Several of the boats that it seized, stripped of their fishing gear, are due to carry 77 crew members of the boats back to Vietnam.
Remengesau said that the stream of poachers showed that just stripping the rogue boats of their nets and confiscating their catches was not enough
“I think it’s necessary to burn the boats,” he said.
Palau, about 600 miles (970 kilometers) miles east of the Philippines, is one of the world’s smallest countries, its 20,000 people scattered across a tropical archipelago of 250 islands that is considered a biodiversity hotspot. In 2012, its Rock Islands Southern Lagoon was named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Driven by rising demand from China and elsewhere in Asia, overfishing threatens many species of fish. With 621,600 square kilometers (240,000 square miles) of territorial waters, including its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, extending 200 miles (320 kilometers) from its coastline, Palau is battling to prevent poaching of its sea life by fishermen from across southeast Asia.
Despite progress in tracing sources of fish sold to consumers, about a fifth of the global market for marine products caught and sold, or about $23.5 billion, is caught illegally.
Advances in telecommunications and vessel tracking technology have improved surveillance, but enforcing restrictions on unauthorized fishing is costly and difficult, especially given the many “pockets” of high seas in the area.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for illegal fishing and other transnational crime. It’s a challenge,” said Seth Horstmeyer, campaigns director for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program. High seas pockets, beyond the jurisdiction of any government, account for nearly two-thirds of all ocean areas.
From Palau to Japan is a vast expanse of seas that nobody controls and nobody owns, areas that serve as refuges for illegal fishing vessels.
The Vietnamese fishermen tend to prowl shallows seas and reefs in search of sea cucumbers and reef fish and then flee back into those deeper waters to evade capture, Horstmeyer said.
One way to counter that tactic is to create a “geofence” using vessel identification systems that could trigger alerts when vessels cross into national waters.
Nearby Indonesia also is taking harsher action, recently blowing up and sinking 41 foreign fishing vessels from China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, as a warning against poaching in the country’s waters.
In Hanoi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh recently told reporters the government was seeking to protect the rights of the fishermen. He urged other governments to “render humanitarian treatment toward the Vietnamese fishing trawlers and fishermen on the basis of international law as well as humanitarian treatment toward fishermen who were in trouble at sea.”
While burning and sinking such ships seems drastic, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has backed such moves, ruling that countries can be held liable for not taking necessary measures to prevent illegal, unreported or unregulated, so-called IUU, fishing operations by their vessels in the waters of other countries.
In a report on IUU fishing last year, the Indonesia government outlined a slew of tactics used by poachers, including fake use of Indonesian flags on foreign vessels, forgery of documents and use of bogus fishing vessels using duplicate names and registration numbers of legitimate ships.
Poachers “go where the risk of being discovered is lowest, said Johanne Fischer, New Zealand-based executive secretary at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, which works on conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources in the South Pacific Ocean.
“Part of the problem is the mafia type of the thinking of the industry of just trying to make money. It’s human nature, whenever you have possibility to make money with illegal activities. It’s the same in the ocean.”
As Palau’s plan for a national marine sanctuary moves through its legislature, other Pacific countries and territories are taking similar measures.
Britain is preparing to make the Pitcairn Islands, home to descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty, the world’s largest continuous marine reserve at 834,000 square kilometers (322,000 square miles).
Last year, the U.S. government announced it was expanding protected areas in three areas - Johnston Atoll, Wake Atoll, and Jarvis Island -of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to encompass about 1.05 million square kilometers (405,000 square miles) of non-contiguous sanctuaries.
As it gears up for stricter enforcement, Palau is consulting with Pew, Japan’s Sasakawa Peace Foundation and some foreign navies on ways to better police its waters using land-based radar, aerial surveillance and satellite identification systems.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
06/11/2015
Office of the President
Deputy Press Secretary
Olkeriil Kazuo
Palau Authorities Catch and Burn Illegal ‘Blue Boat’ Fishing Vessels
Vietnamese fishers arrested as island nation gets tough on enforcement
Palau authorities burned four Vietnamese “Blue Boat” vessels today that were caught fishing illegally off of Kayangel Island. The unauthorized boats were discovered in a protected area with over 8 metric tons of sea cucumbers and reef fish on board. The fishing crew of 77 men will be loaded onto two unburned Blue Boats with enough fuel and provisions to get back to Vietnam. Since 2014, 15 Blue Boats from Vietnam have been captured stealing over 25 metric tons of Palau’s marine species for the black market in Asia.
“We have a simple message for those who try to steal Palau’s marine resources: We will not tolerate poachers in our ocean. Palau is working with our military, diplomacy, and NGO partners from around the world to get tough on illegal fishers and protect our food security,” said President Tommy E. Remengesau Jr. “When the Palau National Marine Sanctuary becomes law, it will be even easier to deter, detect, and interdict pirate fishing. Palau is simply no longer an option when it comes to poaching. This message goes to the captain and crews of these vessels. Palau guarantees, you will return with nothing. Captains will be prosecuted and jailed. Boats will be burned. Nothing will be gained from poaching in Palau. From one fisherman to another, respect Palau.”
Last month, the Office of the President hosted a workshop with The Pew Charitable Trusts and Scripps Institution of Oceanography to develop a comprehensive enforcement plan for Palau. Maritime surveillance experts from the United States, Australia, Japan, and the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency participated in the three-day event to develop strict enforcement strategies for the proposed National Marine Sanctuary. The plan will also assist Palau in preparing for emerging environmental threats like typhoons, sea-level rise, and drought.
“Illegal fishing is a major threat to Palau, given its location as a critical gateway to the Pacific,” said Seth Horstmeyer of The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program. “With a no-tolerance policy and growing enforcement capabilities, illegal fishing will be stopped in Palau.”
As the new enforcement strategy is implemented, Palau will continue to strengthen its response to illegal fishing regardless of scale. On Jan. 26, 2015, Palau Marine Law Enforcement, in partnership with Pew, used Automatic Identification System (AIS) tracking to successfully apprehend a Taiwanese longline vessel suspected of unauthorized fishing activity. The vessel was found with 304 shark carcasses and several hundred shark fins on board, and was required to pay a $100,000 fine. Penalties will become significantly higher and punishment more strict when the Palau National Marine Sanctuary is launched.
Worldwide, it is estimated that illegal fishers steal up to 108,000 pounds of fish from the ocean every minute, which averages to approximately 1 in 5 fish caught in the wild. These activities threaten the health of the ocean, the livelihoods of legitimate fishers, and food security for island nations.
------------------------------------------------------------
Palau burns Vietnamese boats caught fishing illegally
Associated Press
ELAINE KURTENBACH
June 12, 2015
In this photo taken Wednesday, June 10, 2015 and released by the Government of the Republic of Palau, Vietnamese fishermen sit on their fishing ships anchored at the Marine Law Enforcement Division Port in Koror, Palau after being caught fishing illegally in the waters of the country.
The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats of Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters. Palau's president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning, June 12, 2015. He hopes to turn most of the island nation's territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists. (The Government of the Republic of Palau via AP)
TOKYO (AP) - The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats of Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters.
Palau's president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning. He hopes to turn most of the island nation's territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists.
"We wanted to send a very strong message. We will not tolerate any more these pirates who come and steal our resources," Remengesau said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Washington, D.C., where he was visiting.
The country created the world's first shark sanctuary in 2009, but until recently had only one patrol boat to help protect its great hammerheads, leopard sharks and more than 130 other species of shark and rays fighting extinction.
FILE - In this June 13, 2009 file photo, children play at a resort beach in Ngerkebesang, Palau. The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats of Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters. Palau's president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning, June 12, 2015. He hopes to turn most of the island nation's territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists. (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye, File)
The four boats destroyed Friday were among 15 Palau authorities have caught fishing illegally in their waters since last year with loads of sharks and shark fins, lobsters, sea cucumbers and reef fish. Several of the boats that it seized, stripped of their fishing gear, are due to carry 77 crew members of the boats back to Vietnam.
Remengesau said that the stream of poachers showed that just stripping the rogue boats of their nets and confiscating their catches was not enough
FILE - In this June 20, 2009 file photo, the Palau Capital building is seen in Melekeok, Palau.
"I think it's necessary to burn the boats," he said.
Palau, about 600 miles (970 kilometers) miles east of the Philippines, is one of the world's smallest countries, its 20,000 people scattered across a tropical archipelago of 250 islands that is considered a biodiversity hotspot. In 2012, its Rock Islands Southern Lagoon was named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Driven by rising demand from China and elsewhere in Asia, overfishing threatens many species of fish. With 621,600 square kilometers (240,000 square miles) of territorial waters, including its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, extending 200 miles (320 kilometers) from its coastline, Palau is battling to prevent poaching of its sea life by fishermen from across southeast Asia.
Despite progress in tracing sources of fish sold to consumers, about a fifth of the global market for marine products caught and sold, or about $23.5 billion, is caught illegally.
Advances in telecommunications and vessel tracking technology have improved surveillance, but enforcing restrictions on unauthorized fishing is costly and difficult, especially given the many "pockets" of high seas in the area.
"There's a lot of opportunity for illegal fishing and other transnational crime. It's a challenge," said Seth Horstmeyer, campaigns director for The Pew Charitable Trusts' Global Ocean Legacy program. High seas pockets, beyond the jurisdiction of any government, account for nearly two-thirds of all ocean areas.
From Palau to Japan is a vast expanse of seas that nobody controls and nobody owns, areas that serve as refuges for illegal fishing vessels.
The Vietnamese fishermen tend to prowl shallows seas and reefs in search of sea cucumbers and reef fish and then flee back into those deeper waters to evade capture, Horstmeyer said.
One way to counter that tactic is to create a "geofence" using vessel identification systems that could trigger alerts when vessels cross into national waters.
Nearby Indonesia also is taking harsher action, recently blowing up and sinking 41 foreign fishing vessels from China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, as a warning against poaching in the country's waters.
In Hanoi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh recently told reporters the government was seeking to protect the rights of the fishermen. He urged other governments to "render humanitarian treatment toward the Vietnamese fishing trawlers and fishermen on the basis of international law as well as humanitarian treatment toward fishermen who were in trouble at sea."
While burning and sinking such ships seems drastic, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has backed such moves, ruling that countries can be held liable for not taking necessary measures to prevent illegal, unreported or unregulated, so-called IUU, fishing operations by their vessels in the waters of other countries.
In a report on IUU fishing last year, the Indonesia government outlined a slew of tactics used by poachers, including fake use of Indonesian flags on foreign vessels, forgery of documents and use of bogus fishing vessels using duplicate names and registration numbers of legitimate ships.
Poachers "go where the risk of being discovered is lowest, said Johanne Fischer, New Zealand-based executive secretary at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, which works on conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources in the South Pacific Ocean.
"Part of the problem is the mafia type of the thinking of the industry of just trying to make money. It's human nature, whenever you have possibility to make money with illegal activities. It's the same in the ocean."
As Palau's plan for a national marine sanctuary moves through its legislature, other Pacific countries and territories are taking similar measures.
Britain is preparing to make the Pitcairn Islands, home to descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty, the world's largest continuous marine reserve at 834,000 square kilometers (322,000 square miles).
Last year, the U.S. government announced it was expanding protected areas in three areas - Johnston Atoll, Wake Atoll, and Jarvis Island -of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to encompass about 1.05 million square kilometers (405,000 square miles) of non-contiguous sanctuaries.
As it gears up for stricter enforcement, Palau is consulting with Pew, Japan's Sasakawa Peace Foundation and some foreign navies on ways to better police its waters using land-based radar, aerial surveillance and satellite identification systems.
https://www.yahoo.com/style/s/palau-burns-vietnamese-boats-caught-fishing-illegally-024316303.html
----------------------------------------------
Palau burns Vietnamese boats caught fishing illegally
Columns of black smoke rise from four Vietnamese boats in the waters off Palau Friday, June 12, 2015. The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, set fire to the four boats caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters. Palau’s President Tommy Remengesau Jr. hopes to turn most of the island nation’s territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists. (Jeff Barabe/The Pew Charitable Trusts via AP) (Associated Press)
By Elaine Kurtenbach | AP June 12 at 10:41 AM
TOKYO - The tiny Pacific nation of Palau, fighting a rising tide of illegal fishing in its waters, has set fire to four boats belonging to Vietnamese caught poaching sea cucumbers and other marine life in its waters.
Palau’s president, Tommy Remengesau Jr., said the boats were burned Friday morning. He hopes to turn most of the island nation’s territorial waters into a national marine sanctuary, banning commercial fishing and exports apart from limited areas to be used by domestic fishermen and tourists.
“We wanted to send a very strong message. We will not tolerate any more these pirates who come and steal our resources,” Remengesau said in a phone interview with The Associated Press from Washington, D.C., where he was visiting.
The country created the world’s first shark sanctuary in 2009, but until recently had only one patrol boat to help protect its great hammerheads, leopard sharks and more than 130 other species of shark and rays fighting extinction.
The four boats destroyed Friday were among 15 Palau authorities have caught fishing illegally in their waters since last year with loads of sharks and shark fins, lobsters, sea cucumbers and reef fish. Several of the boats that it seized, stripped of their fishing gear, are due to carry 77 crew members of the boats back to Vietnam.
Remengesau said that the stream of poachers showed that just stripping the rogue boats of their nets and confiscating their catches was not enough
“I think it’s necessary to burn the boats,” he said.
Palau, about 600 miles (970 kilometers) miles east of the Philippines, is one of the world’s smallest countries, its 20,000 people scattered across a tropical archipelago of 250 islands that is considered a biodiversity hotspot. In 2012, its Rock Islands Southern Lagoon was named a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Driven by rising demand from China and elsewhere in Asia, overfishing threatens many species of fish. With 621,600 square kilometers (240,000 square miles) of territorial waters, including its exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, extending 200 miles (320 kilometers) from its coastline, Palau is battling to prevent poaching of its sea life by fishermen from across southeast Asia.
Despite progress in tracing sources of fish sold to consumers, about a fifth of the global market for marine products caught and sold, or about $23.5 billion, is caught illegally.
Advances in telecommunications and vessel tracking technology have improved surveillance, but enforcing restrictions on unauthorized fishing is costly and difficult, especially given the many “pockets” of high seas in the area.
“There’s a lot of opportunity for illegal fishing and other transnational crime. It’s a challenge,” said Seth Horstmeyer, campaigns director for The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Global Ocean Legacy program. High seas pockets, beyond the jurisdiction of any government, account for nearly two-thirds of all ocean areas.
From Palau to Japan is a vast expanse of seas that nobody controls and nobody owns, areas that serve as refuges for illegal fishing vessels.
The Vietnamese fishermen tend to prowl shallows seas and reefs in search of sea cucumbers and reef fish and then flee back into those deeper waters to evade capture, Horstmeyer said.
One way to counter that tactic is to create a “geofence” using vessel identification systems that could trigger alerts when vessels cross into national waters.
Nearby Indonesia also is taking harsher action, recently blowing up and sinking 41 foreign fishing vessels from China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam, as a warning against poaching in the country’s waters.
In Hanoi, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh recently told reporters the government was seeking to protect the rights of the fishermen. He urged other governments to “render humanitarian treatment toward the Vietnamese fishing trawlers and fishermen on the basis of international law as well as humanitarian treatment toward fishermen who were in trouble at sea.”
While burning and sinking such ships seems drastic, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has backed such moves, ruling that countries can be held liable for not taking necessary measures to prevent illegal, unreported or unregulated, so-called IUU, fishing operations by their vessels in the waters of other countries.
In a report on IUU fishing last year, the Indonesia government outlined a slew of tactics used by poachers, including fake use of Indonesian flags on foreign vessels, forgery of documents and use of bogus fishing vessels using duplicate names and registration numbers of legitimate ships.
Poachers “go where the risk of being discovered is lowest, said Johanne Fischer, New Zealand-based executive secretary at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization, which works on conservation and sustainable use of fishery resources in the South Pacific Ocean.
“Part of the problem is the mafia type of the thinking of the industry of just trying to make money. It’s human nature, whenever you have possibility to make money with illegal activities. It’s the same in the ocean.”
As Palau’s plan for a national marine sanctuary moves through its legislature, other Pacific countries and territories are taking similar measures.
Britain is preparing to make the Pitcairn Islands, home to descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty, the world’s largest continuous marine reserve at 834,000 square kilometers (322,000 square miles).
Last year, the U.S. government announced it was expanding protected areas in three areas - Johnston Atoll, Wake Atoll, and Jarvis Island -of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument to encompass about 1.05 million square kilometers (405,000 square miles) of non-contiguous sanctuaries.
As it gears up for stricter enforcement, Palau is consulting with Pew, Japan’s Sasakawa Peace Foundation and some foreign navies on ways to better police its waters using land-based radar, aerial surveillance and satellite identification systems.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.