Oceana today released a report exposing the global scale of transshipping at sea, a practice that can mask illegal fishing practices and conceal human rights abuses. The report, which was released at The Economist’s World Ocean Summit in Bali, Indonesia, uses a new dataset released by Global Fishing Watch and Oceana’s partner SkyTruth to identify likely transshipping hotspots as well as the top countries whose vessels were involved in suspected rendezvous at sea and the ports they most frequently visited.
Transshipping enables fishing vessels to remain at sea for extended periods of time. Fishing vessels and refrigerated cargo vessels rendezvous at sea in order to transfer seafood, fuel or supplies. While this transshipping practice can be legal in many cases, it also can facilitate the laundering of illegally caught fish, especially on the high seas and in waters surrounding developing and small island nations with insufficient resources to police their waters.
- View the global hotspots of likely transshipping.
- View the patterns of global hotspots of likely transshipping in more detail.
- View the top 10 ports visited by refrigerated cargo vessels likely involved in transshipping.
- View a Korean fishing vessel at sea for more than 500 days.
- View a Chinese fishing vessel at sea for more than 500 days.
- Read Oceana’s press release.
- Read the Global Fishing Watch blog post.
- Read Oceana partner SkyTruth’s blog on a specific transshipping example.
- Media contact: Megan Jordan, 202-868-4061, mjordan@oceana.org
