Illegal Fishing

ADF STAFF Public sentiment against a planned $55 million industrial fishing harbor at Sierra Leone’s tourist-friendly Black Johnson Beach continues to be strong more than a year after it was revealed. Concerned residents started the…

ADF STAFF Emmanuel Essien, a 28-year-old Ghanaian fisheries observer, was proud of his work, which included reporting illegal fishing tactics aboard foreign fishing trawlers. His diligence may have cost him his life. Essien was…

ADF STAFF China commands the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet (DWF), has the world’s worst illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing record, and its crews are known to abuse foreign workers, according to the…

ADF STAFF Coastal states are sounding the alarm that a lack of resources to patrol waters, combined with limited surveillance of vessel activity, are enabling illegal fishing and leading to food insecurity and the loss of income for…

ADF STAFF Benin became the first African nation to commit to publicly share data about fishing vessels in its waters when it partnered with Global Fishing Watch (GFW) in May. Benin will establish a vessel-monitoring system (VMS)…

ADF STAFF Madagascar recently signed a charter allowing it to join a Southern African Development Community (SADC) initiative aimed at combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and other sea crimes. The charter will…

ADF STAFF As a Ghanaian Air Force helicopter thundered overhead, members of the Ghana Navy Special Boat Squadron (SBS) rappelled down to the deck of a ship floating just offshore. With weapons drawn, they began searching the ship for…

ADF STAFF At least 26 coastal African nations are known to have recently operated open vessel registries or allowed foreign-owned fishing vessels to use various flag schemes to fish in in their waters. This policy lets foreign…

ADF STAFF Brando Brayend Tewuh, a 29-year-old Indonesian crew member aboard a Chinese fishing vessel, was so tired of being beaten and starved that he and three other crew members jumped from the trawler off the coast of Somalia in…

ADF STAFF A new study identifies West Africa as one of the world’s most affected regions by labor abuse on vessels involved in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Conducted by the Stanford University Center for Ocean…