Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing occurs in virtually all fisheries, causing problems for people who are trying to manage fisheries properly and for people who depend on fisheries for food and jobs. IUU fishing can cause an entire fishery to collapse.
Those who conduct IUU fishing do not behave responsibly. By ignoring fishing rules, they gain an unfair advantage over responsible fishers - that is, those fishers who fish in accordance with the rules. Nobody knows exactly how much IUU fishing is taking place.
We do know that, for some important fisheries, IUU fishing accounts for a large percentage of total catches. Even more troubling is that the amount of IUU fishing worldwide appears to be increasing, as IUU fishers try to avoid stricter fishing rules that are being created to deal with downturns (that is, declining catches) in a growing number of fish stocks.
In this interview, Alicia Mosteiro Cabanelas, MCS Operations Specialist/Global Record Technical Manager, Fishing Operations and Technology Branch of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), describes the detrimental impact of IUU fishing and what the international community is to doing to prevent and/or deter IUU fishing.
