Wednesday, December 03, 2003

Five countries set up team to tackle illegal fishing
By Associated Press

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — International officials have set up a five-nation task force to tackle the growing problem of pirate fishers poaching the fish stocks of the world's oceans, a senior European development expert said Tuesday.

"The rape and pillage of the high seas needs practicable solutions by experts, and that's what we hope to achieve," said Simon Upton, the chairman of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Round Table on Sustainable Development.

Upton was addressing delegates from 30 countries at the "Deep Sea 2003" conference, held Monday through Friday in Queenstown in southern New Zealand.

The task force, set up by the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), will be led by British Environment Minister of State Elliot Morley. Its other members are fisheries ministers from New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and Namibia.

Illegal fishers could be poaching the equivalent of "100 percent, or even more than 100 percent of the legal catch" in some areas, Upton said on New Zealand's National Radio.

He said the fishing pirates deplete stocks in one area and then move to another. "If you intervene in one place, those boats go somewhere else," Upton said.

The problem is worsening because there's never been a way to enforce fishing rules globally, said Upton, a former New Zealand environment minister.

The five-nation task force will "put up in neon lights what could be done, what should be done," he said.

The group will draw up its plans for solutions over the next 18 months to two years. Scientists, legal experts, environmental groups, and business people would be asked to contribute to the project, Upton said.