Blog Prompt

For many years, illegal fishing have been ravaging the seas. Many attempts have been made by the government to curb this exercise, but to no avail. Illegal fishing is also known as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU).IUU fishing is a serious global problem, one of the main reasons that slows the achievement of sustainable world fisheries. Worth between $4billion and $9billion per year, IUU fishing is a major loss of revenue, especially to some of the poorer countries in the world, which depends on fish to produce revenue.

Illegal fishing is when a vessel violates the rules of the regional fisheries and the laws the government implemented on the area. For example, they fish too much of a same species, or fish a protected species. The captains of these vessels are usually extremely clear about the rules, and are fully aware of breaking them.

Such activity have high profits, thus fishers usually turn to it as a method for fast and easy money. Without the restrictions placed on them, they are able to fish large amounts of fish and fish rare and endangered species that can fetch a lot of money.


The biggest economic impact of illegal fishing on developing countries is the direct loss of the value of the catches that could be taken by local fishermen if the IUU fishing was not taking place. In addition to this are the loss of revenue from landing fees, licence fees and taxes payable by legal fishing operators. There are also indirect impacts in terms of loss of income and employment in related industries; and any loss in income will also have impacts on the consumer demands of families working in the fishing industry

Then, there are the environment impacts. Illegal fishing have a significant negative impact on the environment. Illegal fishing have damaged the fragile ecosystems in the area, especially extremely vulnerable species like coral reefs, sea birds and more. This will result in a snowball effect. When a species' population decrease, the population of its predator will also decrease, and the population of some other species will increase, upsetting the balance of the ecosystem.