On April 21st, the European Commission revised its list of countries that it considers fail to address illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The EC put Thailand on formal notice ('yellow card') for not taking sufficient measures in the international fight against illegal fishing (IUU). The EC also acknowledged that Korea and the Philippines 'carried appropriate reforms' of their legal system, which is now 'aligned with international law', enabling them to tackle IUU fishing. The EC therefore removed their yellow card.
CFFA feels that, in the case of Korea, this delisting may have come too soon. If indeed some reform of Korea’s legislation has been undertaken on paper to stop its distant water fleets from engaging in IUU operations, including Korean vessels fishing in West Africa , it is unclear whether and how much Korea intends to implement them.
From our information, it seems that several Korean trawlers fishing in West Africa have still recently been involved in illegal incursions in the artisanal fishing zone, including in a country like Guinea.
In 2013, Guinea was given a 'red card' by the EU, because it wasn't doing enough to fight IUU fishing; Guinea is, since then, banned from exporting fish products to the EU market. We are therefore now in a situation where a developing coastal State, Guinea, cannot export its fish on the EU market, whilst a distant water fishing nation, Korea, -which, in our view, has not yet given any concrete proof that it will indeed implement its new legislation and actually stop illegal fishing by its fleets in West Africa-, is able to export to the EU the fish they catch in Guinean and other West African waters. This is an unfair situation, which seems to reflect the fact that trade considerations, - Korea being a key trading partner for the EU, unlike Guinea-, have led the EU to take this somewhat premature step of letting Korea off the hook.
We want to reiterate that, in West African countries, the first victims of illegal operations in coastal waters by trawlers, whether foreign- or locally-flagged, are small scale fishing communities. The fact that the EU has removed Korea’s yellow card, in the absence of any tangible results that the country will indeed implement its reforms, may not only lead to further damage to African coastal communities, but also set a dangerous precedent.
What incentive will there be for other distant water fishing nations and coastal nations to effectively protect their coastal communities from foreign trawlers illegal operations, if the message given by the EU is that the only thing to do to freely trade fish is ‘paper reform’?
At a time where we witness an important number of trawlers being reflagged from industrialised countries, – EU, China, Korea among others-, to developing countries, what will be the incentive to avoid ‘reflagging of convenience’ to escape stringent rules, if the message given today by the EU is that the only thing that matters is that the fight against IUU fishing looks good on paper?
Preventing, deterring and eliminating IUU fishing activities that threaten West African coastal communities’ livelihoods should require concrete action, not merely papering over the cracks.