Fisheries Enforcement

Retired fishery officer Randy Nelson’s first love was catching poachers. That obsession, plus a devious mind and enthusiasm for marathon running, spelled big trouble for law-breaking fishermen. Thirty-five years in the field (and stream) netted a gold mine of stories with hair-raising tales of grizzly bear attacks, angry axe-wielding, rock-throwing, shotgun-blasting fishermen and high-speed chases on dirt roads and through bush. Poachers, Polluters and Politics provides a rare glimpse into the lives of DFO officers and the communities in which they live. Here too are stories showing the lighter side of the DFO, like how Nelson honed his “psychic powers,” and recollections of life in a rodent-infested, government-issue trailer—where his wife Lorraine once awoke to find a mouse chewing her hair. Firm but fair, and always innovative, Randy Nelson usually earned the—often grudging—respect of communities and fishermen he encountered. Whether it meant carving a peephole in a hollow tree or teaching his dog to sniff for salmon, Nelson was constantly scheming up new and tricky ways to catch poachers and polluters, many of them known violent criminals. Nelson spent a career dedicated to protecting BC’s waters and fish population and his passion for his work shines through with every word, drawing the reader into the exciting world of protecting wildlife and prosecuting bad guys.

The concept of a fishing entity is a new category of fishing actors, separate from that of states, in the international law of the sea. The emergence of this new category provides a significant development towards a more flexible application of regulations regarding usage of the sea. A fishing entity owns advanced technology and fishing skills, and, as such, has an important role to play in global and regional conservation and management of fishery resources. Despite this, it is defined as being distinct from a state in the relevant legal documents, resulting in unclear circumstances involving certain global and regional agreements which usually apply to the latter. This ambiguity is particularly prevalent in legal procedures on the high seas when the sovereignty of a state comes into question, such as boarding and inspection. This book provides a detailed definition of the role of the fishing entity in the international law of the sea, and its obligations and rights in high seas fishery enforcements.

This document contains the proceedings of the IMCSNET’s first ever virtual GFETW, which took place online on 13 and 14 July 2021. Nearly 600 monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) practitioners from around the world, as well as other fisheries stakeholders and organizations, registered to participate in the online conference, which consisted of a schedule of speakers, presentations, panel discussions, and interactive discussion rooms. In addition, the virtual platform software utilized for the GFETW facilitated the ability for participants to create and use private meeting rooms for networking sessions, as well as an online chatting function. One of the primary focuses of the IMCSNET is to increase fisheries MCS cooperation and collaboration between Member countries, especially with and between developing country Members The virtual conference included participants from both developing and developed nations as well as stakeholder organizations involved in fisheries MCS. The overall theme of the virtual GFETW was “Illuminating the Unknowns – Global Cooperation to Eliminate the “U’s” from Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing”. The GFETW focused on an interactive format highlighting three interactive panel discussions on emerging MCS areas of interest or challenges. The event also included MCS papers, presentations, and short videos relevant to one of the following four GFETW themes: cooperation and partnerships, risk assessment and analysis, technology as an enabler, and transparency.

This report describes and evaluates the impact of the major changes in the management of Canada's marine fisheries in recent decades. The report covers the historical and jurisdictional context; biological and economic aspects; objectives of fisheries management; techniques of resources management in general and those used for specific species; managing the common property through allocation of access, limited entry licensing, and individual quotas; the international dimension; the social dimension; habitat management; fisheries enforcement; and fisheries management in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Iceland, and the European Community.

Within the European Union, overfishing, overcapacity and non-compliance with the system of catch quotas are threatening the very existence of some fisheries resources. In dealing with these problems, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has developed into one of the most regulated areas of the European Union. Yet, in order to provide for the necessary implementation and enforcement frameworks, the European Union strongly relies on the Member States: a reliance on fifteen different legal systems with different regulatory capacities, different legal traditions and different enforcement systems of criminal law, administrative law, private law or disciplinary law. "Implementing and Enforcing European Fisheries Laws" focuses on the legal and practical problems of the implementation and enforcement of the EU's catch quotas in a shared legal order. It examines in detail how effective enforcement can be achieved in a process of European integration. A distinctive feature of this book is the attention given to the trend towards sectoralization whereby management and enforcement responsibilities are shared between the central government and organisations representing fishermen. To what extent does sectoralization affect traditional systems of public law enforcement? What does resort to the fishing sector itself mean for the degree of legal control Member States exercise over these systems? The book is divided into three sections: Part One examines the Community law context; Part Two investigates implementation and enforcement in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom and analyzes the effectiveness of the existing regulatory frameworks and the systems of criminal, administrative and disciplinary lawused to enforce the fisheries laws and regulations. Part Three compares the national systems in the light of European law requirements and the protection of individual rights. The book concludes with the future of fisheries enforcement and considers the potential changes in enforcement. The study is of importance for the future role of the CFP and its possible effects on national implementation and enforcement. More generally, the book reveals the shifting distribution of responsibilities between the Community and the national institutions and actors involved and shows many of the possibilities for and the limits of regulatory enforcement in a setting of European integration.

The main focus of this book is a review of how the Common Fisheries Policy is enforced throughout the Community, with a discussion of its successes and failures. Topics include the various rules and policies to be enforced; the enforcement authorities in the Member States and their activities and strategies; the role of the Commission and its approach to enforcement; new developments in fisheries control; the costs of enforcement; and problem fisheries and non compliance generally.

This book is the first comprehensive examination of state practice relating to enforcement by non-flag states of the high seas conservation and management measures adopted by Regional Fisheries Organisations. It demonstrates that an exception is emerging in customary international law to the rule of the primacy of flag state jurisdiction in the high seas fisheries context.