
The hunt for the fish pirates who exploit the sea - forkLding
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190213-the-dramatic-hunt-for-the-fish-pirates-exploiting-our-seas
======
acdanger
"The captain, a Russian citizen named as Aleksandr Matveev, was later
sentenced to four months in prison and fined Rp200 million (£10,800) after
being found guilty of illegal fishing. The other Russian and Ukranian offers
were deported to their home countries."

That seems an extraordinarily light punishment for an operation that looted
tens of millions of dollars worth of fish and caused untold harm along the
way. I can't imagine would-be pirates being much deterred.

~~~
toomuchtodo
The situation won’t change until perpetrators are charged in the country
they’re looting fish stocks from, jailed for a significant amount of time, and
their vessels seized and broken down for scrap.

~~~
wavefunction
And the foreign companies that employ them bombarded from space with a mass
driver.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Just passing the buck up and jailing the executive would likely be enough, but
mass drivers are cool too.

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makerofspoons
The WWF has estimated that, barring dramatic change, the stock of fish for
food will collapse by 2048:
[http://www.wwf.org.pe/en/how_you_can_help/faq/sea/](http://www.wwf.org.pe/en/how_you_can_help/faq/sea/)

~~~
mikekchar
Hmmm... I wonder if "scientists predict that..." refers to my supervisor at
university who did simulations in the late 80s that made this same prediction.
I really wish environmental groups would add citations to their "scientists
predict that..." claims.

Not disputing the claim (and I think my supervisor was brilliant), just
griping that I can't do anything to follow up on what they are actually
talking about.

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wefarrell
For natural resources like fish I think there's a good case to be made for
cartel style control. Consider the Maine lobster industry where Fishermen
strictly adhere to and enforce conservation guidelines with the hopes of
leaving a healthy lobster population for future generations to live off.

[https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2018/0625/For-Maine-
lo...](https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2018/0625/For-Maine-lobstermen-
conservation-and-success-go-hand-in-hand)

~~~
dredmorbius
That's pretty much exactly what the Tragedy of the Commons holds; that some
form of collective and controlled ownership in which _both_ benefits _and_
costs are collectively shared, rather than privatising benefits and
socialising costs.

[https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of...](https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_tragedy_of_the_commons.html)

------
spodek
The New York Times did a fascinating series of long articles that are similar:
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/24/world/the-
out...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/24/world/the-outlaw-
ocean.html)

------
rb808
Even in the US, still a full third of fish is illegally caught. I'm really
surprised in 2019 there is no crackdown on this.

[https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140409-ille...](https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/04/140409-illegal-
seafood-pirate-fishing-fisheries-marine-conservation/)

------
forkLding
Support [https://globalfishingwatch.org/](https://globalfishingwatch.org/) if
you can, they visualize, track and share data about global fishing activity in
near real-time for free to stop illegal fishing.

I remember that they organized several online hackathons around their data
that I participated in before.

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drugme
Why can't I be applying my skills to help with stuff like this, full time?

~~~
paulcole
What's stopping you?

~~~
rabidrat
No funding and no supporting organization? I'm not able to work for free, and
I don't think this is something that can be done by 100s of hackers in their
spare time with loose coordination.

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pstuart
The web of corruption described in the article was the type of thing that
Wikileaks was purportedly intended for. Pity.

