Hobart: Despite attempts to crack down on illegal Antarctic fishing, a report has found that there is still rorting and a refusal to tighten rules in the chase for high-priced fish.
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Korean authorities found a fleet of three ships fabricated catch documents and ship tracks, apparently with Russian help, the preliminary report of the 25-member Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) shows.
At a meeting of the CCAMLR in Hobart, China has blocked attempts to impose an official observer watch on the krill fishery, which is growing at such a pace one hotspot had to be shut down midseason.
The renewed attention to illegal fishing comes as hardline activists of Sea Shepherd turn their attention to Antarctic fisheries, departing from the Tasmanian capital on Wednesday to hunt for illegal fishers while Japanese whalers rest their harpoons this summer.
"Instead of a whale, we have an ugly client this time, in the toothfish," said Peter Hammarstedt, captain of Sea Shepherd's ship the Bob Barker. "But we are going after fully blacklisted illegal fishing boats who think their risk of detection is minimal."
The price of toothfish, a deep-water polar denizen, on global markets continues to soar, with legally caught and sustainably certified toothfish advertised in Australia for $64 per kilogram wholesale.
The CCAMLR's preliminary report revealed flagrant abuse of fishing rules by member nation South Korea's Insung fleet.
The Insung No. 1 sank in the Ross Sea in 2010 with the loss of 22 lives, but since then three more sister ships have falsified catch documents and the records of their movements, according to the CCAMLR report.
"We determined that all three vessels were engaged in illegal fishing activities," the Korean delegation told the closed meeting in Hobart last month.
It said since the breaches were detected, Insung No. 7 had been scrapped, all Insung toothfishing ships had been banned from the Antarctic, and they were being fined an undisclosed amount.
Questions were also raised at the CCAMLR meeting about official scientific observers from Russia aboard the Insung ships who reported "anomalous" fishing data. Britain said there was "no other option than to assume the observers on board were complicit".
Attempts were made at the meeting to impose a ban on the finning of sharks taken as bycatch, in line with global moves to stamp out the practice. This was opposed by Japan and China, whose delegation said the fishers had the right to decide what to do with the sharks.
China also blocked an attempt to ensure every boat in the burgeoning krill fishery had an official independent scientific observer on board, saying it could otherwise impose an "unncessary burden" on the industry.
Fishers are increasingly catching the shrimp at the centre of the Antarctic food web for processing as fish food and for dietary supplements. The krill catch this year at 291,370 tonnes was the highest reported since 1991, the CCAMLR report said.
Most of it was taken from a krill hotspot in waters west of the Antarctic Peninsula, which had to be closed to fishing partway through the season as a result.
Environmental umbrella group the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition (ASOC) said: "The problem with this is that krill predators in these areas cannot always move to another area to avoid competing with fishing boats".
ASOC is calling for a new estimate of the total Antarctic krill population. "Krill are very sensitive to environmental changes, and the growing threat of climate change necessitates up-to-date information," it said.
