Plunder in the Pacific

Pacific fish stocks decimated

Jack mackerel down 90 percent in 20 years in once-rich seas; world’s largest trawlers compete for what's left.

Impact

Key vote clears way to stop fish plundering in the South Pacific

Chilean legislators clear the way for legally binding international measures to protect threatened fish across the southern Pacific, after an ICIJ investigation.

The last fish

BBC documentary spotlights ICIJ probe into fish devastation

As aggressive, unregulated fishing continues in the South Pacific, BBC World News broadcast a documentary featuring the ICIJ’s probe into the plundering of jack mackerel.

Lawmakers propose fishing ban for European fleets that target decimated jack mackerel

Dutch Parliament debates ICIJ’s Pacific overfishing investigation

Dutch government debates a ban to catches of threatened jack mackerel that vessels from the Netherlands and other European countries have overfished in the South Pacific.

Allowable catch would bypass scientists’ advice to protect the decimated jack mackerel stock

Fishing nations fail to stop plunder in the South Pacific

Fishing states meeting in Santiago, Chile, left the way open for fleets to catch jack mackerel far beyond the 390,000-metric ton limit that scientists say is vital to protect the already decimated species.

Anchoveta

Peru’s vanishing fish

Rampant cheating and lax controls allowed 630,000 tons of anchoveta to go missing between 2009 and 2011.

Sin control, gigantes pesqueros diezman el Pacífico Sur

El stock de jurel ha disminuido un 90% en sólo 20 años en unas aguas meridionales donde antes abundaba el pescado

Power plays and privilege

Lords of the fish

With government backing, a handful of powerful Chilean families have secured unrealistically high fishing quotas.

Methodology: Behind the numbers in Looting the Seas III

During the 1990s, Chileans caught more than 28 million metric tons of jack mackerel. Today, as stocks plummet, vessels struggle to find fish.

Peru is second only to China as a fishing nation, and its main catch is anchoveta. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, with the Lima-based investigative center IDL-Reporteros, decided to analyze how the anchoveta fishery — the world’s largest — was regulated and controlled.

IDL-Reporteros sought access to the official database of anchoveta landings using freedom of information in March 2011. The Ministry of Production denied access repeatedly, saying it was not public. Read more about Methodology: Behind the numbers in Looting the Seas III

Our mission, team, and partners

About This Project: Looting the Seas III

Jack mackerel was once one of the world’s most abundant fish.

Looting the Seas is an award-winning project by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists looking at forces that are rapidly emptying the oceans of fish. In its first installment ICIJ documented the massive black market in threatened bluefin tuna. In the second, it revealed that billions of dollars in subsidies flow into the Spanish fishing industry despite its record of flouting rules and breaking the law. Read more about About This Project: Looting the Seas III

Key Findings

Asian, European and Latin American fleets have devastated fish stocks in the southern Pacific, once among the world’s richest waters.
Since 2006, jack mackerel stocks have declined by nearly two-thirds. The oily fish is a staple in Africa, but people elsewhere are unaware that it is in their forkfuls of farmed salmon as a vital component of fishmeal for aquaculture.
National interests and geopolitical rivalry have blocked efforts to ratify a regional fisheries management organization to impose binding regulations to rescue jack mackerel from further collapse.
In Chile, a handful of companies controlled by wealthy families own rights to 87 percent of the jack mackerel catch; with government backing, they have secured unrealistically high quotas — beyond what scientists say are essential to save the stock.
In Peru, the world’s second largest fishing nation, widespread cheating at fishmeal plants allows companies to overfish and evade taxes. At least 630,000 tons of anchoveta – worth nearly $200 million as fishmeal – “vanished” over two and a half years.