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18th Apr 13

Managed by Chatham House

Financed by DEFRA

China

China has the largest fishing fleet in the world, operating not only in China's waters, but across the globe.

China is frequently in the news in relation to illegal fishing activities. In the last year alone, Chinese fishers and fishing boats have been apprehended or monitored engaging in illegal activities in the waters of many countries, including Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and South Africa. In the Philippines alone, the authorities say they have arrested almost 600 Chinese nationals for poaching in the last nine years. Greenpeace and EJF have tracked illegally operating Chinese flagged trawlers from the waters around Guinea to landing their catches in the Canary Islands, the Philippine authorities have arrested Chinese fishers for fishing in the prohibited waters of the Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park, and Chinese companies have been implicated in organised crime rings involving illegal fishing.

In addition, efforts to crack down on the shark fin trade have focused very much on China, the main market for the highly prized fins which are used in shark fin soup.

China consumes 30% of the catch from the world's commercial fisheries, and 10% of that is turned into feed for China's vast aquaculture industry, which raises 70% of the world's total production of farmed fish.

In terms of China's own resources, more than 3,000 species of marine life are found along the coast, of which over 100 species are targeted. The main harvested products are finfish, crustaceans, cephalopods (such as octopus), shellfish and seaweed. In 2004, fisheries accounted for 10.5% of agricultural GDP.

In response to falling catches in the 1990s, the government introduced a 'zero growth' objective in 1999 and began a programme of reducing vessel numbers and relocating fishers away from marine capture fisheries in 2002. In 2006, the government issued the Programme of Action on Conservation of Living Aquatic Resources of China, that provides that, by the year of 2010, the deterioration of the aquatic environment, decline of fisheries resources and the increase in number of endangered species will be halted, over-capacity will be reduced, and the efficiency of fishing operation and economic benefits will be increased.

documents (8)
events (2)
links (2)
news (316)
presentations (2)
profiles (1)

documents

Understanding China's Fish Trade and Traceability Systems
17/08/2009
The author of this report suggests that China has made considerable progress in improving the traceability of its fish processing industry, but will n ...
Author: TRAFFIC / WWF (Shelley Clarke)

Dirty Fish: How EU Hygiene Standards Facilitate Illegal Fishing in West Africa
09/06/2009
This report claims that investigations by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) have demonstrated direct links between pirate fishing in the West ...
Author: Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF)

Corruption and Industrial Fishing in Africa
01/12/2008
Africas marine resources are increasingly in demand and are gaining in geopolitical importance. Competition between key fishing nations for access and ...
Author: Anti-Corruption Resource Centre (Andre Standing)

Study and Analysis of the Status of IUU Fishing in the SADC Region and an Estimate of the Economic, Social and Biological Impacts
01/05/2008
The study explores and helps to quantify the magnitude and types of Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing in the Southern African Developm ...
Author: Stop Illegal Fishing

Taking Tuna Out of the Can: Retailers Roles in Rescuing the Worlds Favourite Fish
10/03/2008
Global tuna stocks are in trouble. For example, since industrial scale fishing of southern bluefin tuna began in the 1950s, the biomass of reproducing ...
Author: Greenpeace

Enmeshed: Australia and Southeast Asia‘s Fisheries
11/12/2007
Southeast Asia‘s oceans are fast running out of fish, putting the livelihoods of up to 100 million people at risk, leading to more illegal incurs ...
Author: Lowry Institute, Australia (Dr Meryl Williams)

Trading Tails: Linkages Between Russian Salmon Fisheries and East Asian Markets
13/11/2007
This report claims that East Asian countries are importing between 50 and 90% more Russian Sockeye salmon than Russia is reporting as caught. Possible ...
Author: TRAFFIC (Shelley Clarke)

Chang Xing: Case Studies on IUU Vessels No. 2
01/03/2005
In June 2004 the Greenpeace ship s/v ‘Rainbow Warrior‘ sailed into the Tasman Sea to focus global attention on the destruction caused to dee ...
Author: Greenpeace

events

8th International Forum on IUU fishing
11/02/2013
This is the 8th in a series of international forums on Illegal, Unreported and unregulated (IUU) Fishing held at Chatham House on 11-12 February 2013.

APFIC Regional Consultative workshop on Capacity Reduction and IUU Fishing
13/06/2007
Click here for the papers and other information from the workshop held on 13-15 June 200

links

Asia Pacific Fisheries Commission (APFIC)

Please click here to notify us if this link is broken

The Ocean Trawlers Group
With approximately 120,000 mts (metric tonnes) of fish and seafood handled yearly, the Ocean Trawlers Group is the biggest supplier of cod from the Barents Sea, a leading distributor of cod and haddock in North America, and the largest processor of cod in China.

Please click here to notify us if this link is broken

news

presentations

Tracking Fish: China in the Global Supply Chain
16/10/2009
A pair of studies conducted for the United Kingdom’s DEFRA and DFID examined China’s role in the global fish trade and in distant water fi

Author:
Shelley Clarke

Managing Fishing Capacity and IUU Fishing in China
13/06/2007

Author:
Shanghai Fisheries University, China

profiles

Dr. As Tianbao Qin
Law Professor, to teach and research in the fields of environmental and resources law, biodiversity law, international law, etc. ...

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