Byline: Francisco Blaha

Skilled fisheries officers a critical part of effective port state measures, as Marshall Islands charge shows

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There is a lot written by many fisheries organisations in the world about the port state measure (PSM), from the FAO PSM Agreement, to the WCPFC PSM CMM and IOTC PSM CMM, to FFA’s developing PSM framework.

Yet, operationally, for a country, the whole point of PSMs is to avoid the use of its ports for the unloading of fish caught in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing operations by vessels both foreign and domestic. 

One does not need to read every word in a document with a lawyer’s loupe or sign agreements to start operations. You just start working it out in your own time and at your own pace. There is no need to have all the papers lined up and all the standard operation procedures written before you start doing something.

‘Doing something’ may entail fisheries authorities changing the way the port operations are conducted. Training by doing takes time, resources will need to be mobilised, routines need to be created, and so on. Many aspects of the day-to-day work cannot be foreseen by doing a one-week workshop, attending some meetings, and expecting all things to be right. You need to start, and to learn by doing – and for that you do not need to sign any high-level document. 

Anyone working in compliance has learned that there is only one thing worse than not signing a piece of paper: it is to sign it and then not be able to comply with it. 

All countries do understand the importance of signing on to international commitments. Still, they are also aware, on a daily basis, of the limitations faced, particularly when small countries blessed with good natural ports are taking on the on the job of controlling vessels. 

This is a job that ought to be shared with the flag states, yet that is not always the case. For example, many port states in the western and central Pacific region inspect more vessels from distant water fishing nations (DWFN) than the vessel’s own flag state authorities do.

Routine PSM operations pay off

Yet, when you start doing PSM routinely, it pays off. The recent case of the Marshall Islands Marine Resources Authority (MIMRA) is the perfect example. In February, it charged a Korean longliner for fishing in Marshall Islands waters without a valid licence. The charge was based on best PSM practices.

MIMRA’s PSM strategy focuses on intelligence analysis around the identity, licensing and operations of arriving vessels before they are authorised to use the port.

image of newspaper story on charges laid in Marshall Islands against a Korean longline fishing vessel
The Marshall Islands Journal report on charges being laid against the Korean longliner

The operations part requires them to analyse the ship’s movement before it enters port. This is done by looking at its vessel monitoring system (VMS) track. Yet it is one thing is to look at VMS track, and another is to understand the behaviour of a particular type of vessel based on gear deployment and manoeuvring. 

While VMS may give you a good indication of what happened at a time and place, sometimes it does not suffice as evidence. So, once on board, the officer needs to know what to look for and where to find it, so they can collect definitive evidence that cannot be disputed. 

Accurate analysis of ship’s documents also needed

The types of supplementary evidence that make cases watertight include logbooks (captains’ and chief engineers’), temperature records, onboard GPS plotters, and buoy-recovery marks, among other types of vessel information. 

Furthermore, the active conduct of the boarding officers shows the captains that they know their job. In most cases, captains accept this, and accept the charges to cut their losses.

And this is exactly what my colleagues in Majuro have done with the FV Oryong 721. Officer Beau Bigler identified the offence during the manoeuvring analyses that are part of the routine intelligence report prepared for every vessel intending to enter Majuro. He took notes on time and place, and once on board went straight to the bridge and collected evidence from documentation written and instruments operated by the captain, making the evidence really hard to dispute.

Photo from above and behind of man checking documentation on ship. Photo Francisco Blaha.
Fisheries officer Beau Bigler crosschecks ship documentation with relevant findings in the arriving-vessels intelligence analysis for a purse seiner intending to gain authorisation to tranship in Majuro. This is done for every vessel intending to use the port. Photo: Francisco Blaha.

The charging of the vessels (the last one of four the past two years) is a total win for the PSM team in MIMRA. It is one you get by understanding how different fishing vessels operate, and what and where info is recorded and stored on board. 

Add to that the dedication of competent officers, and we have PSM that does work and produce results without having to sign – for now – any big documents … simple as that.

The types of states in a catch documentation scheme

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Republished from Francisco Blaha’s blog, 14 March 2018

by Francisco Blaha

 

I promised that I would slowly digest and post parts of our CDS publication to bring some of the key elements to the table; here is the 2nd post.

One of key issues we found when talking about CDS is a limited understanding of the “roles” of each type of state in the CDS picture in particular, but also in the MCS in general. Since country-specific mechanisms are often essential for verifying and corroborating submitted data, enhancing monitoring functions and identifying and sanctioning fraudulent transactions. (And is also a good proxy on why a “single country CDS” would hardly ever have a substantial impact on multi-state value chains)

The state types involved in fishing, landing, processing and trade of fisheries products along the supply chain are “fixed” and each type of state carries out functions that contribute to the success of the CDS:

Flag state. This is the state whose flag is flown by fishing vessels, whose activities it is obliged to authorize and to monitor under international law. In international fisheries targeting species under the management of an RFMO, flag states also have reporting obligations to the international body as to the activities and catches of their fleet(s). Oversight by the flag state covers harvesting, transhipment and landing operations, the latter typically regarded as the last transaction related to fishing. The flag state is crucial in a CDS in that it validates catch certificates for catches harvested during fishing trips deemed by the flag state to have been conducted legally.

Coastal state. This is the state in whose waters a fishing operation may be taking place, in which case the coastal state must provide the necessary oversight to ensure that foreign vessels entering its waters are authorized to operate, and report operations and catches to relevant coastal state authorities. Coastal states currently have no statutory role in existing unilateral and multilateral CDS.

Port state. This is the state in whose port(s) fish are landed. The port state has a legal obligation under the PSMA to ensure that only legal fish are landed by carrying out rigorous in-port inspections of vessels flying a flag other than that of the port state and voluntarily entering its ports to land fish. The port state is crucial in ensuring that catch to be landed from a CDS-managed fishery are covered by valid catch certificates at the time of landing.

Processing state. This is the state in which raw products are converted into semiprocessed products or end products. The processing state may be the same as the port state, but fisheries products for processing may enter the processing state by sea, air or land. Processing states are important in CDS systems in terms of ensuring that non-certified fishery products are not imported, processed or certified for export or re-export. The “laundering” of fisheries products into legally certified supply streams occurs mostly at this level.

End-market state. This is the territory in which final consumer products are placed on the market, acquired by customers and consumed, often after importation. In a CDS the action of the end-market state is limited to ensuring that non-certified products cannot gain access to its consumer markets – a crucial final element in guaranteeing the success of a CDS.

The illustration above shows a standardized supply chain with the segments covered or controlled by the various state types. It is clear that few operations or CTEs (Critical Tracking Events) along the supply chain are under the exclusive purview of a single state type and that a large number of operations fall under the purview of different state types along the supply chain. The flag state, for example, will (or at least should!) oversee transhipments and landings, but so will the port state when these do take place in a port, and sometimes the coastal state is involved in oversight of transhipments in its EEZ.

Yet is really important to understand, that a single country can act as a few or as all of the state types at once, and at different levels of involvement.

In the Tuna world, a country like PNG for example, is at once a important flag, coastal, port and processing state, and in a lesser level a market state. Countries like Nauru or Tukelau are only coastal states, Thailand is the ultimate example of a processing state, Taiwan and China (even if it brings some fish back to its ports) are examples of major flag states, finally the EU and the US, that dependes substantially on imports, are major End-Market States, even if they have their own fleet, ports and processors.

This multiplicity of roles is important, since from the seafood traded internationally; 61% originates in developing countries and 85% of it is destined for developed countries. The current internationally integrated seafood value chains show that for most products many different administrations may be involved from catch to consumer.