Plunder in the Pacific

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Key findings

The Willem van der Zwan is one of 25 EU-flagged vessels represented by the Dutch-based Pelagic Freezer-trawler Association

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.

By Mort Rosenblum

Jun 19, 2012

Video: Peru’s vanishing fish

By ICIJ

Apr 30, 2012

Video: ICIJ investigation on BBC World News

By ICIJ

Apr 27, 2012

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.