“Go away predatory Chinese vessels,” read some of the signs Peruvian artisanal fishermen held during one of their latest protests against the mighty Chinese fishing fleet in the coastal city of Piura. In recent years, the Chinese fishing fleet and its countless illegal actions have all but decimated artisanal fishing in Peru, a way of life for many in the Andean country.
“This is the sad and painful reality that we, artisanal fishermen, are living […], harvesting shellfish to bring a livelihood to our family, because squid fishing is over as a result of the Chinese ships that have plundered our sea,” a fisherman from Piura can be heard saying on a video shared on social media on September 6.
Despite the measures Peru established to prevent the Chinese fleet from entering its jurisdictional water and fish illegally, ships still manage to circumvent regulations and continue to enter the Peruvian sea and catch squid indiscriminately. According to the National Society of Artisanal Fishing of Peru (Sonapescal), more than 300 ships from China enter Peruvian waters each year without complying with the Satellite Tracking System of the Ministry of Production, Peruvian daily La República reported in September.
“The Chinese fleet evolves and increases over the years,” Milko Schvartzman, oceans and fisheries project coordinator for Argentine nongovernmental organization Círculo de Políticas Ambientales, told Diálogo on October 2. “Twenty-four years ago, there were just a couple of dozen Chinese vessels detected, according to some newspaper estimates. But in those days, there was no satellite tracking.”
According to Schvartzman, the current Chinese fleet consists of more than 400 vessels in the South Atlantic and 300 in the South Pacific, counting only those that frequent the zones where they fish for squid.
For Sonapescal, 2024 has been the worst in two decades for the local fishing of the mollusk, with lower exports in the first semester compared to 2023 and a 70 percent reduction in catches compared to 2022.
Faced with this situation, the artisanal fishermen have been carrying out several peaceful protests at sea and on land. One of the latest on October 2, blocked the Pan-American Highway in the province of Islay, Arequipa department. Not only do fishermen decry the indiscriminate fishing of Chinese vessels, but also accuse China of blocking measures to protect Peruvian waters and have said that they oppose the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, scheduled to take place in Peru, November 10-16, where he is also expected to attend the inauguration of the Port of Chancay, Infobae reported. “China disintegrates the fishery, leaving thousands of workers without a livelihood for their families,” Infobae reported.
“We don’t want any more Asian ships. These ships fish the giant squid when it is still very young and exterminate the resource,” fisherman Carlos Bayona told Canal N during a July protest in Piura. “We want the government to listen to us. These ships enter our waters without any satellite tracking.”
“This has led to 2024 being classified as the worst year for the fishing industry for direct human consumption so far this century,” said Henry Juárez, leader of the Association of Artisanal Fishermen.
Regional catastrophe
For Schvartzman, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing has many dimensions and facets, because “social and economic aspects are affected.”
And the problem goes beyond Peru. “China’s long-distance fleet, which includes fishing, transport, support, and supply vessels, totals some 17,000 ships,” Spanish news site Política Exterior reported. According to Greenpeace, China is the biggest culprit in illegal fishing worldwide.
The Chinese fishing fleet, “is the spur of an expansionist geopolitical strategy, which reaches the coasts of Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru”, Política Exterior reported.
In Argentina, “Chinese ships in the territorial waters of the South American country have increased their illegal fishing by 800 percent in the last decade,” Infobae reported.
Chile, who has much of the Latin American Pacific coast, is constant prey to violations of its national sovereignty at sea by the more than 3,000 Chinese vessels, which frequently trespass maritime borders to extract natural resources, Chile’s national agriculture and fisheries platform Aqua indicated.
“Since 2017, Colombia also reports a significant increase of Chinese fishing vessels on its Pacific coasts. This presence threatens marine species such as sharks, rays, tuna, and albacore,” the BBC reported. “Illegal fishing in these areas not only affects endangered species, but also compromises the sustainability of local fish stocks.”
Ecuador has been victim of this plundering for years, with illegal fishing carried out even in UNESCO protected areas, such as the Galapagos Islands marine reserve, InSight Crime said.
Illegal fishing is associated with other crimes such as slave labor, drug trafficking, piracy, corruption, and marine pollution. Chinese vessels deactivate their identification systems and use flags of convenience to evade the law, infobae reported.
“The countries in the region see their fishing economies affected because this fleet operates on the resources in each country’s territorial sea,” Schvartzman said. “The artisanal fishermen are then harmed, because the product they need is scarcer and they have to go out to look for it farther and farther away from their coastal towns.”
Although Peru has measures in place to prevent IUU fishing and the Chinese fishing fleet’s shady activities, Chinese vessels have been using different methods to enter Peruvian waters and extract its resources, Infobae reported.
One such method is to change their speed while they are on their way to a Peruvian shipyard. It is precisely at this time that Chinese vessels take advantage of the opportunity to fish illegally, Global Fishing Watch reported.
President of Sonapescal Elsa Vega Pardo warned on Peruvian radio RPP that the local fishing industry “is mired in poverty and is nearly 100 percent paralyzed.”
The Peruvian Navy, through the Coast Guard Operations Command, located in the Callao Naval Base, presented in the middle of this year its most modern tracking equipment and technology, which it is testing to exercise control over vessels operating in the national maritime domain, also known as the Sea of Grau, news site Zona Militar reported.
“The local population, which depends on artisanal fishing to put food on the family table, is forced to compete directly with Chinese industrial fishing companies,” Schvartzman concluded. “It’s an unequal struggle.”
