Source: Sign On San Diego
Commercial fisherman Scott Hawkins set out from San Diego in the Jody H last June and spent two days in Mexican waters, where he fished for albacore. He said he idled there to avoid strong winds during a planned voyage some 1,700 miles west in search of tuna on the high seas.
It turned out to be a fateful decision. Late last month, Hawkins and Nathan Lee, captain of companion boat, each pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unlawful fishing and were ordered to pay $500.
They caught what the U.S. attorney’s office said was 800 pounds of tuna in Mexico — a minor offense in the shadowy world of illegal fishing. The global, multibillion dollar problem with ties to organized crime is a focal point for representatives of more than 50 nations gathering in San Diego starting Monday to improve marine conservation.
The meetings are part of a dialogue launched in Kobe, Japan, four years ago to better manage the world’s far-ranging, high-value fish populations partly by cutting down on illegal catches. The second convention took place two years ago in Spain and the third will be at the Marriott Hotel in La Jolla. Actions from the meetings are nonbinding, but they play into mandates adopted by regional fishery alliances worldwide.
Poaching — technically classified as an illegal, unreported and unregulated harvest — takes many forms. It includes catching crabs before the season starts, taking sea bass from marine reserves, using banned gear for harvest, fishing without a license and keeping tuna that are too small.
“If there are large numbers of people who are breaking the rules, this means we are not really protecting the resource and we are going to run out of fish,†said Margot Stiles, a marine scientist at the nonprofit advocacy group Oceana in Washington, D.C.
Curbing poaching is a top priority because the unlawful harvests undermine efforts to manage a huge variety of species. Poaching is of increasing concern as the growing global population puts more demands on the world’s oceans for food, and it’s of increasing local interest as California makes fishing off-limits in more areas off the state’s coastline.
San Diego was chosen for what’s called the Kobe III conference because it’s home to one of five international tuna management organizations, and it was the center of the nation’s tuna fleet until environmental concerns capsized the industry in the 1980s. San Diego still has the corporate headquarters of tuna companies Chicken of the Sea and Bumble Bee Foods.
The U.S. delegation will push for several changes aimed at protecting tunas, billfish, swordfish and sharks. One of the ideas officials floated this week is creating a grading system to show how well each country reports catch data to international governing bodies. Another goal is gaining global agreement to stop harvesting overfished species.
“We are trying to sustainably manage these species and in order to do that we need to collect information, analyze that information and make decisions based upon what the science tells us,†said Russell Smith, NOAA’s deputy assistant secretary for international fisheries.