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FAO – NGO Webinar on Transshipment

03/08/2020

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) invited non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to attend a webinar on the topic of transshipment in fisheries. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) and The Pew Charitable Trusts participated. The webinar was held on the 30 July 2020.

FAO experts were joined by Mr Mark Young of the International Monitoring, Control and Surveillance Network (IMCSN), in view of his ongoing contribution to the FAO global study on transshipment, the results of which are currently being prepared for publication.  

FAO presented the study, detailing the approach and methodology, extent of coverage, case studies, preliminary findings and the identification of key elements for consideration in the potential development of guidelines on the management and control of transshipment.  The NGOs presented some of their work on transshipment, including: (i) a comparative study by Pew of possible carrier vessel activity derived from AIS records compared with publicly available documented transshipment events that highlighted apparent discrepancies;(ii) continued work by EJF on the Saiko transshipment activity in Ghana; and (iii) interview-based assessments of working conditions and compliance issues onboard longline vessels fishing in waters beyond their national jurisdiction. The discussions during the webinar highlighted the following important points: 

  • Transshipment at-sea can facilitate human rights abuses as well as compliance-related issues such as shark finning;
  • Transshipment management guidelines should include impetus for increased use of new and emerging technologies in monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS);
  • All organizations noted the increasing practice of direct offloads of fish from fishing vessels to refrigerated containers that, if left unchecked by management controls, can facilitate the introduction of fish caught through IUU fishing into the market;
  • At-sea transshipments of partial loads of selected fish product introduces high levels of risk and uncertainty to effective traceability measures;
  • Ensuring the impartiality of carrier vessel observers by requiring that their nationality be different than that of the flag State of the vessel is considered by participants to be a key requirement in the global carrier fleet;
  • Identifying beneficial ownership is an important challenge – several organisations are working on this;
  • The Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) has developed a set of Key Data Elements (KDEs) on transshipment that can help increase the transparency of these operations.

Participants appreciated the webinar and were grateful for being given the opportunity to receive an overview of the FAO transshipment study prior to the publication of the technical report.