Explainer: Why are fish wars heating up all over the world? | jamesmassola
he South China Sea is one of the world's most tense regions. But the entry of four Chinese coast guard vessels and 63 fishing boats into Indonesian waters in December, and again in January, still managed to shock and infuriate Indonesia.
People all over the world are eating more fish. Between 1961 and 2015, in per capita terms, consumption grew from 9 kilograms a person to more than 20 kilograms. It now accounts for about 17 per cent of animal protein consumed globally.by the Sea Around Us initiative,suggested the FAO had underestimated the "peak" global fish catch from the world's oceans. The figure was actually 130 million tonnes, it contended, not 86 million tonnes .
Ocean acidification, increases in water temperature, the oxygenation of the water and the degradation of habitats are all factors, says Hanich, who leads the Fisheries Governance Research Program at the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security. Nations can set catch limits and sell the right to others to fish in their own EEZ. Australia did so with Japan until the 1990s. Some smaller states in the Pacific and parts of Africa do so today, as they do not have the resources to fish these areas themselves.
The southern bluefin tuna is one of the rarest and most expensive tuna species and China, for example, is not a member of the commission that manages this fish. Fisheries in the region, Poling wrote, "teeter on the brink of collapse", while the Chinese government-subsidised fleet in the region serves two purposes: "Most of these vessels serve, at least part time, in China’s maritime militia."
For Indonesia, the recent showdown in the Natunas was shaped by domestic politics, which demands that Indonesia stand up to China. "The challenges that DWF fleets pose to coastal countries’ resources and the fishing industry, particularly the expanding Chinese fleet, will persist unless there is a significant global shift towards sustained fisheries management," the Stimson Centre, a Washington think-tank, said in a 2019 report.
According to the Stimson Centre, the top five countries targeted by IUU are Kiribati, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Micronesia and Papua New Guinea.
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