The Quad group of nations on Tuesday will unveil an initiative to curb illegal fishing in the Indo-Pacific region, the Financial Times reported.
The initiative does not hold Beijing responsible directly but it is evident that the initiative will aim to curb the menace of illegal Chinese fishing trawlers which crop up on all international waters.
The people involved in preparing the draft said that China was responsible for 95% of illegal fishing in the Indo-Pacific.
Under the initiative, the nations will connect existing surveillance centers in Singapore, India and the Pacific and develop a tracking system for illegal fishing from the Indian Ocean and south-east Asia to the South Pacific, the Financial Times reported.
The official said that the US and its partners can now monitor illegal fishing even when fishing boats have turned off the transponders which are used to track maritime vessels.
“China has become the world’s largest perpetrator of illegal fishing.They have drastically depleted global fish stocks and undermined traditional livelihoods of many countries, so any steps taken to track, identify and curb such activity would have environmental and security benefits for the region,” Charles Edel, Australia chair at CSIS, a think-tank was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.
Several think-tanks, researchers and people involved in the fishing trade from all over the world have highlighted the menace of the illegal Chinese fishing trawlers.
From Sierra Leone to Somalia, Peru to Argentina or Palau to Micronesia, Chinese fishing trawlers are everywhere and are affecting the livelihoods of the citizens of these nations for whom fishing is the primary source for food as well as income.
A paper titled ‘Sink or Swim: The Future of Fisheries in the East and the South China Sea’ by the International Forum For Right And Security (IFFRAS) pointed out China was the worst offender in the 2021 IUU Fishing Index.
The IUU Fishing Index maps illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in 152 coastal countries and found that Chinese illegal fishing trawlers were the biggest perpetrators.
The paper said that the menace of Chinese illegal fishing can be seen in the Pacific, South America and Western Africa.
The illegal fishing leads to problems like overexploitation of marine resources and less fish for the local fishermen for whom fish is the sole source of income.
In the Indo-Pacific, Philippines and Indonesia have earlier highlighted that their coastal communities and fishermen face similar issues like their Western African and Southern American counterparts due to China illegally catching fish from others waters.
China also has an armada of dark fleets which fish illegally by switching off their transponders to avoid detection.
With the new Quad initiative, fishermen across the globe can hope that illegal Chinese fishing trawlers will be caught and China can be held accountable for robbing millions of citizens of these coastal communities and people who work in the fishing industry.
(with inputs from The Financial Times and ANI)
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