How India Will Stop China’s Massive Illegal Fishing? – Free PDF Download

What has happened?

• The leaders of Quad nations — Australia, India, Japan and the United States — are reported to be getting ready to unveil a maritime surveillance initiative to protect exclusive economic zones in the Indo-Pacific against environmental damage.
• The aim, according to analyses appearing on Sunday, is to push back especially against massive and reckless deep-water fishing by Chinese trawlers in the region.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet with President Joe Biden of the US and Prime Ministers Fumio Kishida of Japan and Anthony Albanese of Australia at the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Tokyo on Tuesday (May 24).
• A series of other meetings are also lined up.

How will maritime surveillance system work?

• The initiative will use satellite technology to connect existing surveillance centres in India, Singapore and the Pacific.
• This will help establish a tracking system to combat illegal, unregulated and unprotected (IUU) fishing.
• The satellite-enabled dragnet will track IUU fishing activities from the Indian Ocean and South-east Asia to the South Pacific, a report in the ‘Financial Times’ said.
• The idea is to monitor illicit fishing vessels that have their AIS (automatic identification system) transponders turned off to evade tracking.
• The move by the Quad security group is also seen to be aimed at reducing the small Pacific island nations’ growing reliance on China.

Why illegal fishing is a threat?

• The unregulated plunder of global fishing stock poses a grave threat to the livelihood and food security of millions of people.
• Globally, fish provide about 3.3 billion people with 20% of their average animal protein intake.
• According to an FAO report, around 60 million people are engaged in the sector of fisheries and aquaculture.
• While the economic loss from illegal fishing has been difficult to precisely quantify, some estimates peg it around USD 20 billion annually.
• In 2020, the US Coast Guard had said that illegal fishing had replaced piracy as a global maritime threat.
• In the Indo-Pacific region, like elsewhere, the collapse of fisheries can destabilise coastal nations and pose a much bigger security risk, as it can fuel human trafficking, drug crime and terror recruiting.

Why is China in the dock?

• The 2021 IUU Fishing Index, which maps 152 coastal countries, ranked China as the worst offender.
• China is considered responsible for 80% to 95% illegal fishing in the region after having overfished its own waters.
• It, in fact, is known to incentivise illegal fishing with generous subsidies to meet its growing domestic demand.
• According to ODI, a global affairs think-tank, China’s distant-water fishing (DWF) fleet has almost 17,000 vessels.
• “China’s DWF fleet is the largest in the world….vessel ownership is highly fragmented among many small companies and the fleet includes vessels registered in other jurisdictions,” it said in a report.
• These vessels, which can scoop staggering amounts of catch on every single voyage, are often accused of pillaging ocean wealth with great sophistication and with little regard for maritime boundaries.
• China also uses them to project strategic influence and to bully fishing vessels from weaker nations.

How will India help?

• The Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) may play a key role in a Quad initiative against illegal fishing.
• The IFC-IOR was established in 2018 for regional collaboration on maritime security issues including “maritime terrorism”, IUUF, piracy, armed robbery on the high seas, and human and contraband trafficking.
• The Gurgaon-based data fusion centre has information sharing links with 50 nations and multinational/maritime centres.
• The centre was established as part of the government’s SAGAR (Security and Growth For All in the Region) framework for maritime co-operation in the Indian Ocean region.
• It hosts international liaison officers from partner countries, which include both India’s immediate neighbours in the Indian Ocean region and from further afield, including Australia, France, Japan, Singapore, the UK and the US.
• The two other data fusion centres likely to be involved in this initiative are the Singapore Navy’s Information Fusion Centre, and the Australia-sponsored Pacific Fusion Centre, set up in 2019 in Port Vila in Vanuatu.

Q) Which among the following is correct regarding World Maritime Day?

1. It is observed on the last Thursday of September month.
2. It was first observed in 2005.

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 & 2
4. None of the above

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