The Thunder pursued by Sea Shepherd Photo: Sea Shepherd / Simon Ager

Lawless Seas - Crimes and crimes in the oceans of the five continents

WORLDWIDE
Thursday, April 15, 2021, 19:00 (GMT + 9)

During the recent navigation crisis in the Suez Canal due to the traffic jam caused by the Ever Given, some ships decided to take the alternative route that involved circling the African continent to reach Europe. But the majority decided to wait, not so much because of what it meant delaying the arrival of goods to the destination ports for several days, but because of the danger of being victims of pirate attacks in areas of the coast of Africa where this practice is prevalent. order of the day.

Piracy is one of the phenomena to which international navigation and fishing activity is subjected in specific areas of various oceans, but it is not the only crime committed in international waters.

An excessive casuistry

The vastness of the oceans makes effective control over everything that occurs in its waters impossible. Hence, a large number of offenses related to overexploitation, piracy and other crimes are committed.

The journalist Ian Urbina has investigated for publications such as the New York Times and National Geographic some of the crimes - in an ecological sense but also in the humanitarian sense - that are committed throughout the seas around the world, crimes covered by the clandestinity, in the lack of means to put an end to the impunity in which they develop and in the tangle of jurisdictions, treaties and laws that are difficult to apply from one country to another, which make the sea an untamed space.

► Ian Urbina Oceanos Lawless (Océanos sin Ley) Cover

Some of Urbina's most recent works are now published in "Lawless Oceans" (Captain Swing), a book denouncing the irregularities that the journalist has experienced in the first person, as one of his merits is having witnessed the episodes which he recounts throughout these pages.

Poaching, kidnapping of fishermen, looting of boats, human trafficking, fraud of shipowners and insurance companies…. A whole series of illegalities parade through the pages of this book amidst surprise, disbelief and fascination.

Urbina has encountered ship robbers, mercenaries, stowaways, abandoned sailors, or unscrupulous shipowners on his voyages through the world's oceans who are the protagonists of the crimes reported in this book.

Poaching and other ruins

Ian Urbina boarded the "Sam Simon", a ship of the NGO Sea Shepherd, to attend the pursuit of the stealth fishing vessel "Thunder". They were 110 days along more than 11,500 nautical miles, three oceans and two seas, going through storms and storms.

Image: courtesy LV16

The "Thunder" was one of the "six bandits," a name by which the most persecuted boats that fished with illegal nets were known. She had changed her name ten times and sailed under about ten different flags. When on April 6, 2015, the Sea Sepherd ships caught up with her off the coast of São Tomé and Príncipe, she began to sink until she disappeared before the astonished eyes of environmentalists. Everything suggests that the sinking occurred intentionally to avoid charges and incriminating evidence that implicated him in the crimes he had been committing for years. The environmental boats picked up the castaways.

The Thunder lists dramatically to the starboard side as it takes on water. Photo: Sea Shepherd / Simon Ager

Another of the most striking episodes of poaching that are recounted here is that of the South Korean trawler "Oynag 70", a victim of the ambition of his fishing captain, who did not calculate the overweight of one of the southern blue whiting catches, when the holds of the ship were almost full, and it sank off the coast of New Zealand after unloading the contents of its nets on deck. As a result of this episode, serious irregularities were discovered in the company that chartered the ship, including the lack of preparation of its crews, which in 2014 caused the death of almost all the men on another company ship, the "Oryong 501" , which sank while fishing in the middle of a heavy storm.

Poaching is impossible to control in countries like Palau and Indonesia, made up of hundreds of islands spread over vast maritime areas. Palau has a single patrol boat to deal with illegal fishing vessels from China, Taiwan, Vietnam and other countries that plunder its waters with stealth fleets of superfishermen using kilometer-long nets.

Oryong 501 sinking incident in the Bering Sea—International DVI cooperation in the Asia Pacific ►

Indonesia (17,000 islands) has better tools to protect its fishing grounds, especially since Pudjiastuti, a member of an environmental organization, was appointed Minister of Fisheries. Even so, tensions with fishing boats from various countries and clashes with those from China are frequent, which claims some areas as part of its territorial waters. (Continued ...)

Author: Francisco R. Pastoriza |  Read the full article by clicking here (only available in spanish)

editorial@seafood.media
www.seafood.media

Print