The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) is running the risk of being considered non-cooperative in the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing due to its “lack of strong, consistent binding measures for its members” for the squid fishery, according to a Latin American industry group.
The industry group, the Committee for the Sustainable Management of the Southern Pacific Jumbo Flying Squid (CALAMASUR), was referring to failed talks during the SPRFMO’s 10th annual meeting, which tabled proposals to combat IUU of the threatened Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas). The fishery, located off the western coast of South America, is the single most-important squid fishery in the world, accounting for over 30 percent of global squid volumes, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
It is also a fishery that has been victim to IUU fishing, particularly by China’s distant-water fishing fleet, according to the SPRFMO. The number of Chinese-flagged vessels in the south Pacific surged from 54 in 2009 to 707 in 2020, with the squid catch jumping from 70,000 metric tons (MT) to 358,000 MT over the same period, the Associated Press reported. In 2020, a large fleet of mostly Chinese squid-jiggers swarmed international waters near the Galapagos Marine Reserve in Ecuador, a move that environmental activists decried and that Ecuador later responded to by increasing the protected area around the reserve.
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https://www.seafoodsource.com/news/environment-sustainability/sprfmo-risks-non-cooperative-consideration-in-fight-against-iuu-calamasur-warns