Australia to boost aerial surveillance of Pacific for illegal fishing fleets
Reuters
Australia plans to significantly increase monitoring of Pacific Island Countries’ territorial waters, spending more than $310 million on aerial patrols for illegal fishing fleets, documents show.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Fiji in mid-June 2025 to discuss regional security after Fijian Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka approved a maritime security agreement under which Canberra will fund a patrol boat for the island nation.
Australia will commission aerial patrols to monitor island nations’ maritime exclusive economic zones, which span millions of kilometers. Efforts to deter illegal fishing also spurred the opening in April 2025 of a monitoring center in Fiji.
“The maritime domain is an important part of ensuring a stable and secure region in which sovereignty is respected,” Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said as Albanese visited Fiji.
“These countries, they have very large maritime zones but sometimes very small islands, so making sure that the maritime domain is … used in a way that complies with international law and international norms, that goes to sovereignty.”
Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing threatens communities worldwide, particularly in the Indo-Pacific, and accounts for an estimated 14 million metric tons of catch each year. The United Nations says the practice has “major implications for the conservation and management of ocean resources, as well as the food security and the economics of many states, particularly developing states.”
Australia has provided two dozen patrol boats to island nations and its Navy and Air Force routinely patrol for illegal fishing.
China is the leading perpetrator of IUU fishing, with Chinese-flagged vessels the most common violators of international fishing rules, ranking worst among 152 countries, according to a 2023 global index.
China has registered 26 Coast Guard vessels for Pacific patrols with the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, although it had not conducted an inspection as of mid-2025, commission officials said.
The nine island countries that control the world’s largest tuna fishery have not invited China to conduct patrols and instead rely on Australian-funded surveillance and patrols by Australia, France, New Zealand and the United States, said Sangaa Clark, chief executive of the coalition called the Parties to the Nauru Agreement.
Pacific security expert Peter Connolly, a fellow at the University of New South Wales in Australia, said China Coast Guard patrols in the region would “introduce geostrategic tensions to the policing of the Pacific’s fisheries.”
