Sea Shepherd Just Ended Illegal Fishing In Liberia. They're Not Stopping There.

 

     Sea Shepherd began Operation Sola Stella in February 2017, their second campaign to stop illegal fishing in Africa with their third African government. In the first 20 days, three vessels were arrested on dozens of violations, including using undocumented crew, keeping crew in appalling conditions, trying to bribe Coast Guard inspectors, fishing in areas reserved for artisanal fisheries, and underreporting their catch. The next month, they arrested the Star Shrimper XXV for fishing without a license; the "certified sustainable" vessel was also arrested for not using a TED (Turtle Exclusion Device), which are required to prevent endangered sea turtles from dying in shrimpers. The vessel spent two months in detention and received a massive fine before being recalled to its home state of Nigeria. The entire crew was suspended and the officers were fired, and it spent another several months in detention there; this arrest put the Star Shrimper XXV out of commission for six months. Their fifth and final arrest of the first campaign was a massive cargo vessel with a long history of illegal fishing and identity fraud, which was arrested for transshipment of poached marine life. During the final month of the campaign, all illegal fishing vessels fled from Liberian waters.

     Sea Shepherd returned from November 2017 to June 2018. During this campaign, the arrests included: a mega trawler that turned off its AIS system, fished without any licenses, and kept a wild monkey as a pet illegally; Labiko 2, a notorious poaching vessel that was estimated to kill 500,000 sharks a year for shark liver oil (the vessel was permanently confiscated, saving millions of sharks and potentially preventing the collapse of Liberia's deep sea shark populations); the arrest of a trawler on New Year's Day for fishing without a Liberian license; the arrest of a poaching vessel for using FADs (the vessel was defended by corrupt authorities in Ghana but ultimately spent two months detained nonetheless); the arrests of a notorious toothfish poacher with a forged nationality certificate wanted by INTERPOL and a trawler attempting to flee detention in port; and a seventh vessel; bringing the total to 12 arrests in 12 months of patrols.

     During their third campaign, from November 2018 to April 2019, three vessels were arrested, including a foreign vessel fishing in the Inshore Exclusion Zone and attempting to conceal its identity and a purse seiner that forged its license and failed to keep a record book, bringing the total number of arrests to 15.

     Sea Shepherd wasn't done. They returned to Liberia in the summers of 2020 and 2021, conducted the same covert patrols they did during the first three campaigns, and, both times, not a single IUU fishing vessel was found or arrested. This is not because they are less effective, but because they have made it clear that Liberia will arrest any poaching vessels it finds in its waters. Meanwhile, local fishermen have reported that the numbers of fish in Liberia are increasing. Sea Shepherd was awarded Liberia's highest military honor in 2019, and Liberia now has a trained Coast Guard with millions of dollars they recovered from fines against the vessels Sea Shepherd arrested. Liberia will continue to guard its waters to ensure the poacher never return, and Sea Shepherd will continue to fight illegal fishing.

     They have partnerships with the nearby countries of Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, and Sierra Leone in the Canary Current as well as campaigns in the countries of Benin, Gabon, São Tomé y Príncipe, Namibia, and Tanzania in Africa; Italy in Europe (in the Aeolian Sea, for the first time, the amount of IUU fishing gear went down last year); Colombia, Mexico, and Peru in Latin America, and partnerships in the works with several other countries in each of these regions. Their work in Liberia is about to be a case study in effectively fighting and ending IUU fishing, and they are on track to replicate these results in potentially dozens of places around the world.