A review of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing issues and progress in the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission region Cover photograph: ©FAO/Simon Funge-Smith A review of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing issues and progress in the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission region Chris Wilcox, Vanessa Mann, Toni Cannard, Jessica Ford, Eriko Hoshino and Sean Pascoe Published by: the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Bangkok, Hobart, 2021 Required citation: Wilcox, C., Mann, V., Cannard, T., Ford, J., Hoshino, E. and Pascoe, S. 2021. A review of illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing issues and progress in the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission region. 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Users wishing to reuse material from this work that is attributed to a third party, such as tables, figures or images, are responsible for determining whether permission is needed for that reuse and for obtaining permission from the copyright holder. The risk of claims resulting from infringement of any third-party-owned component in the work rests solely with the user. Sales, rights and licensing. FAO information products are available on the FAO Web site (www.fao.org/publications) and can be purchased through [email protected]. Requests for commercial use should be submitted via: www.fao.org/contact-us/licence- request. Queries regarding rights and licensing should be submitted to: [email protected] PREPARATION OF THIS DOCUMENT In 2015, the Secretariat of the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission (APFIC) prepared a study on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in its area of competence. This report was presented as an information paper to the 34th Session of the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission in Colombo, Sri Lanka, 2016 but was not published. In January 2019, the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO RAP) signed a Letter of Agreement with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) to conduct additional research in order to update the findings of the 2015 APFIC study and to further evaluate the changes and progress made in combating IUU in the Asia-Pacific region. This report documents the results. Contents Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................................................... viii Acronyms and abbreviations............................................................................................................................................... ix Executive summary .............................................................................................................................................................. x 1 Background to the Asia-Pacific Fishery Commission region ............................................................................. 1 1.1 Drivers of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing ............................................................................. 2 1.2 Unique aspects ................................................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 APFIC 2015 study of illegal fishing in the APFIC region ...................................................................................... 4 1.4 Other studies providing IUU estimates in the region ......................................................................................... 6 1.5 Review of IUU estimation methodologies .......................................................................................................... 7 1.6 Review of management efforts since the previous estimate by FAO .............................................................. 10 1.7 Goals of the current project ............................................................................................................................. 12 2 Fisheries officers surveys .............................................................................................................................16 2.1 Survey design .................................................................................................................................................... 16 2.2 Survey distribution and responses ................................................................................................................... 20 2.3 Survey analysis and results ............................................................................................................................... 21 2.3.1 Controlling the quality of responses ............................................................................................................ 21 2.3.2 Predicting levels of illegal landings .............................................................................................................. 22 2.4 Estimated illegal catches and catch values ...................................................................................................... 26 2.5 Change in hotspots since 2015 ......................................................................................................................... 30 2.6 New hotspots identified ................................................................................................................................... 32 2.7 Focal species ..................................................................................................................................................... 38 2.7.1 Perceived landings that involve illegal activity ............................................................................................ 40 2.7.2 Frequency of contravention of regulations at different levels .................................................................... 42 2.7.3 Entities participating in illegal activity ......................................................................................................... 44 2.7.4 Frequency of different types of infractions ................................................................................................. 45 3 Interviews ...................................................................................................................................................49 3.1 Interview design ............................................................................................................................................... 49 3.2 Respondents ..................................................................................................................................................... 50 3.3 Identification of illegal-fishing hotspots and review of previous estimates .................................................... 50 3.4 Interview responses for geographically focused discussions ..........................................................................