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December 23, 2016

How to tackle the rising tide of poaching in Australia’s tropical seas

Steven Purcell, Southern Cross ¾«¶«´«Ã½ and Hampus Eriksson, ¾«¶«´«Ã½ of ¾«¶«´«Ã½

High-value marine species in waters off northern Australia are at increasing risk of poaching by foreign fishing crews, according to from the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. The number of in Australian waters increased from six in 2014–15 to 20 in 2015–16.

These fishers have evidently come to poach species that fetch high prices and have been overfished elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region. They seek “” – species that are attractive to the black market because they are expensive, easy to catch and weakly regulated.

Among the species being targeted are , , .

Many of these species are listed as vulnerable or endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (). Some are even protected from trade by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora ().

A long history of poaching

The have been primarily from Vietnam and Indonesia. Last month, a Vietnamese fishing vessel stopped inside the Conservation Park Zone of the Coral Sea Commonwealth Marine Reserve was found to be carrying 3 tonnes of partially processed sea cucumbers. Dried sea cucumber, called bêche-de-mer, can fetch more than A$300 per kg when sold in China.

The Timor and Arafura Seas have long histories of . Some believe the tensions in the South China Sea are pushing Southeast Asian fishermen into Australian waters. It is also possible that Indonesia’s is shifting fishing patterns in the region.

But apart from economic loss as resources are poached from Australian waters, what are the impacts? A shows that species such as sea cucumber can play crucial roles in boosting the health of coral reef systems. This is important at a time when reefs are facing from climate change and coastal development.

Nine species of sea cucumbers from Australian waters were threatened with extinction globally by the IUCN. Removal of some marine fauna might degrade the resilience of coral reef ecosystems to broad-scale stressors.

What can be done?

In June, Immigration and Border Protection Minister Peter Dutton : “Preventing illegal fishers from plundering Australia’s well-managed fisheries is every bit as important as stopping the people smugglers and illegal arrivals.”

Although the Australian Border Force has the capacity to apprehend illegal fishing boats, much of the poaching happens on distant coral reefs. One problem is that illegal fishing boats can plunder lootable resources and get out of Australian waters before Border Force can reach them. So while regulation might be well enforced on reefs within the Great Barrier Reef, for instance, offshore reefs are comparably weakly regulated.

But stronger monitoring and enforcement might not be the only solution anyway. , which involved interviewing sea cucumber fishers from Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga and New Caledonia, suggests that they see themselves as having few other livelihood options besides fishing. This means that even if their fishery collapsed or was closed down by authorities, they would simply move elsewhere or fish a different species.

Many fishers from Southeast Asia have doubtless been lured to poaching in Australian waters by similar issues. Curbing the rise in poaching therefore requires not only continued enforcement but also, crucially, foreign aid investment that can help these fishers to diversify their livelihoods.

Australia recently reshaped its to focus predominantly on delivering “economic growth and poverty reduction”. Organisations such as the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) are investing in overseas research and development projects to provide more income-generating opportunities in fisheries and aquaculture. Support to Southeast Asian countries makes up 49% of the budget for .

Australia’s approach to reducing poaching of threatened resources should therefore be multifaceted. Helping foreign fishers deal with their own problems of overfishing by giving them more options to earn a living will ultimately help to tackle the root cause of marine poaching.

, Senior Rearch Fellow in Fisheries Ecology, and , Senior research fellow,

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