illegal fishing

The Pacific Island Leaders Meeting, known as PALM, is held in Japan every three years.

Japan's government hosts the PALM summits as a way to share its assistance programme with Pacific Island Forum countries.

Ahead of this summit, Tokyo said measures to help Pacific countries enforce maritime law within their maritime jurisdictions would be included in a joint statement for the eighth PALM meeting.

Pacific Island countries struggle to adequately police their exclusive economic zones which have become subject to regular incursions by so-called Vietnamese blue boats.

The Kiribati Fisheries Administrative Penalty Committee imposed the fine for fishing illegally in Kiribati waters.

The vessel is owned by a Taiwanese businessman based in the Marshall Islands.

The Kiribati Police Maritime Unit Superintendent Officer Commanding John Mote told Radio Kiribati News the vessel was fined after being spotted fishing within PIPA waters in 2015 but has since managed to escape arrest.

The vessel was finally apprehended by Kiribati authorities a few weeks ago.

Gerry Brownlee met his Fijian counterpart, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, at a South Pacific defence ministers' meeting in Auckland yesterday to discuss issues including maritime surveillance.

He said an inshore patrol vessel will be deployed to Fiji for six months in May to combat the widespread problem.

According to Mr Brownlee, the increase in illegal fishing vessels from Vietnam, also known as "blue boats", required counter-action.

The world's largest archipelago nation has taken a tough stance against illegal fishing since President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took office in 2014. Authorities have sunk 317 foreign vessels since then, including the most recent.
 
The ships were blown up at sea in 12 locations around the archipelago on Saturday.

According to the public broadcaster, a French surveillance aircraft spotted two boats near Ouvea after which a naval vessel intercepted them to escort them to Noumea.

Reports said a Vietnamese fisherman, who was in a serious condition after a suspected diving accident, was immediately taken off and flown by helicopter to hospital.

Two other blue boats were seen near Belep and the navy succeeded in catching one of them.

A week earlier, French surveillance teams helped Solomon Islands catch three blue boats fishing illegally.

The arrests were made on Sunday by police and fisheries officers.

A police statement said the boats were caught fishing illegally off the reef Indespensable Reef about 50 kilometres south of Rennell Island.

A total of 43 crew members were detained.

The arrests came after police received reports of blue boat activity from communities in Makira Province.

Nine Pacific countries ran Operation Rai Balang 2017 which co-ordinated out of the Forum Fisheries Agency surveillance centre in Solomon Islands.

Operation Rai Balang 2017 covered 14.7 million square km and saw a total of 918 detections of fisheries vessels, 93 aircraft sightings, and 50 boardings 30 of them at sea.

Of the seven arrests five recorded in Vanuatu were long liners flagged to China with minor infringements.

In FSM, a purse seiner flagged to China allegedly had its vessel monitoring system turned off at the time of its inspection.

Trans-shipping means fishing boats can stay at sea for an extended period of time, in some cases more than a year, by transferring their stock to another boat and receiving fuel and supplies.

The US-based group, Oceana, said that practice could often involve the laundering of fish, human rights abuses, and labour violations.

Its senior campaign director, Beth Lowell, said trans-shipping was a huge problem around the world and it was also likely to be happening in the Pacific due to its large tuna fisheries.

The blue boats as they are called are ocean-going wooden fishing vessels that sail to the waters around the Western Pacific Islands in search of sea cucumbers, giant clams and lobster, as well as fish.

Papua New Guinea's fisheries minister has described the boats as a threat to national security, and the director general of the Forum Fisheries Agency, James Movick, says regional collaboration is vital if the blue boats are to be stopped.

Movick says the ‘blue boats’ are having significant impact.

Director blong Fisheries Development long FFA, Mike Batty i toktok long wanem ol i kolim ol "Blue Boats" blong sampela kantri long Asia we i save go stilim ol samting olsem sea cucumber, klam shell, lobster na fish long rif.

Mr Batty i tok em i had long FFA long painim ol dispela kaim boat long wanem ol ino gat ol satelite tracking sistim long ol olsem ol bikpela tuna boat.

So em i tok em bai gut long ol pipol long peles long ripotim ol blue baot ia long ol fishery ofisa oa polis sapos ol i lukim ol.