Illegal PRC fishing hurts East African communities, report says

RADIO FREE ASIA

A multibillion-dollar global fishing industry backed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) government is driving a surge of vessels engaged in illegal activities and exploiting fishing grounds off East Africa, according to a London-based environmental group.

“Before the Chinese fishing boats came here, we could expect a good catch when we cast our nets, even if we only cast the nets three times,” one Mozambican fisher told the U.K.-based Environmental Justice Foundation. “Now we have to stay out at sea for a whole day to catch enough fish.”

“This is heartbreaking, because these fish are not only for us, but also for our children,” he said. “They have destroyed our future livelihoods.”

The PRC’s vast fishing fleets, which cast their nets as far away as Latin America, West Africa and Antarctica, have added to the strain on worldwide fishing stocks, according to organizations monitoring the issue in recent years.

Government-backed distance trawler fleets quickly scoop up massive amounts of fish, depleting stocks, interrupting breeding cycles and polluting the coastlines of Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique and Tanzania with huge dumps of discarded fish judged not valuable enough to process, local witnesses told the foundation.

Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world, with around two-thirds of the population living on the coast and dependent on the sea for their livelihoods.

But the report — the first to detail PRC fishing operations in the southwest Indian Ocean — states many ships in the fleet exhibit “illegal, unsustainable and abusive behaviors towards marine ecosystems and crew alike.”

Titled “Tide of Injustice: Exploitation and illegal fishing on Chinese vessels in the Southwest Indian Ocean,” it found 86 instances of illegal fishing and human rights violations in the area between 2017 and 2023, half of which were linked to PRC fishing vessels.

Illegal fishing and human rights abuses were found to be commonplace, including routine shark finning, the deliberate capture and/or injury of vulnerable marine animals, and crews suffering from physical violence, abusive working and living conditions, intimidation and threats, said the report.

Researchers interviewed dozens of Mozambican fishers and former crew members of PRC fishing vessels.

“All of the fishers interviewed by the foundation who had worked on China’s tuna fleet in the southwest Indian Ocean … experienced or witnessed some form of human rights abuses and/or illegal fishing,” the group stated in the June 6 report.

According to the Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing Index, the PRC ranks as the worst offender among 152 countries assessed.

Violence is also rife aboard PRC vessels, the foundation’s East Asia Manager Chiu Shao-Chi said.

Chiu said 54% of interviewees witnessed or experienced beatings and assaults, including with knives and metal implements, kicking and other forms of abuse.

About 70% of interviewees reported being verbally abused or intimidated, sometimes alongside the physical violence, by their superiors.

And around 93% said they had been underpaid or had deductions from their wages for no good reason, amounting to hundreds and even thousands of dollars.

Some were forced to take out loans in order to get their jobs and forced to pay back the cost of food, transport and healthcare to their employers, as well as make repayments on the loan.

“Many fishermen told us that they were basically enslaved,” Chiu said.

The remote nature of fisheries, combined with an industry-wide lack of transparency, continues to make identifying and prosecuting illegal fishing and its human rights abuses challenging, the report found, particularly when vessels are operating far from their home ports.

Seafood companies in the PRC, which are often state-owned or subsidized and backed by local ruling Chinese Communist Party officials, have been fishing in the southwest Indian Ocean for years.

“Over the past 25 years, overfishing by industrial fleets and widespread illegal, unregulated or unreported fishing have caused a 30% decline in subsistence fisheries production in Mozambique,” Chiu said, citing local government data.

Mozambique loses an estimated $70 million in revenue each year “due to rampant illegal fishing, which has a significant impact on the national economy and the livelihoods of coastal residents,” she said.