Market-Based Mechanisms – Improving Fisheries Management? - SEAFOOD Ecolabelling: Principles and Practice - page 191

Trade distortion measures such as tariffs and subsidies are generally viewed as
a threat to trade although there is much discussion over the impacts of some types
of fishery subsidies. As tariffs or subsidies are reduced there will be opportunities
for the exporters of seafood products to access new markets. For example, the
reductions in EU tariffs for live Australian rock lobster enabled additional access
to 1500 tonnes of this product in the EU (Edwards 2004). However, like all trade
measures, reductions in tariffs and subsidies need to be accompanied by quality
management regimes for the fish stocks to ensure that the changes in the trade
environment do not have unintended negative consequences for the seafood stocks.
The discussion above is not to make the case that trade itself is the major source
of production pressures and thus the main source of overfishing and environmental
damage. Such pressures have existed for many years and would continue even in
the absence of trade. However, it serves to illustrate the growing number of issues
that trade creates, such as increasingly long supply chains that create ever-more
tenuous connections between source and supply, and the growth in supply from
nations with inadequately developed supply-side fisheries management systems
and the increasing opportunities for circumvention of their laws.

9.4 Illegal fishing - a compelling issue

Environmental crime, including illegal dumping, use of banned substances, and the
take and trade of plants and animals that are either protected or illegally supplied is
one of the fastest growing areas of organised crime in the world (Hayman & Brack
2002, Schmidt 2004). Whilst illegal fishing is rarely described as being a crime per
se, the international nature of Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing
and the documented links between some types of fishing activities and other, more
serious crimes such as drug trafficking, places the illegal trade in some species into a
whole new arena. Due to the nature of this trade, detailed information on impacts is
even harder to obtain than that from legitimate trade. However, if the fishing activi-
ties are 'subsidised' or are simply a front for other, more lucrative activities such as
drug or people smuggling, then the cost structure of fishing is even further distorted.
The term IUU fishing refers to fishing which occurs outside of established laws
(illegal), occurs in areas where there are no laws, such as on the High Seas (unreg-
ulated) or where no record of catches is kept (unreported). The obvious concern
is that information on the amount of fish extracted from a stock is unaccounted
for within the management system, thus increasing the likelihood of overfishing.
However, there are also concerns about fishing activities affecting sensitive species
of the marine ecosystem (such as albatrosses). From a trade perspective, vessels
that engage in IUU fishing have lower production costs and thus seafood products
from such vessels can undermine legitimate products in the marketplace (Agnew
& Barnes 2004). For example, work in Japan suggests that, in the case of tuna, the
production costs for IUU vessels are 30% lower than those for legitimate fishing
vessels (OECD 2003).