According to news report earlier this month the owner of a foreign-flagged fishing vessel paid a $500,000 fine for fishing illegally within U.S. waters of a remote central Pacific territory. With this fine the vessel owner has settled a nearly three-year-old case that involved a chase on the high seas. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Office of Law Enforcement, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Guam, made this announcement jointly here last week.
The owner of the Marshalls 201, a Republic of the Marshall Islands-flagged “purse seine” fishing vessel, has gave his nod to pay the penalty for violating the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act for fishing illegally in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of the United States adjacent to Howland and Baker Islands.
It is said that the case started on Sept. 9, 2006, when the Coast Guard and NOAA conducted a joint fisheries patrol of the remote EEZ adjacent to the U.S. National Wildlife Refuges at Howland and Baker. On Oct. 4, 2006, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Guam filed a forfeiture complaint against the Marshalls 201 based on two violations of the Magnuson Act. Under a consent decree, the vessel owner paid the $500,000 fine based on one violation of the Magnuson Act. In addition, the vessel owner, in cooperation with the flag state – or country in which it’s registered, the Republic of the Marshall Islands – will allow U.S. authorities to monitor the activities of the vessel through a vessel monitoring system (VMS) for the next three years.
It is told that the vessel owner also agreed to participate in NOAA’s “Global Drifter Program” by deploying drifter data buoys in remote areas of the Central Pacific Ocean on each of its fishing trips for the next five years. Because this vessel operates in remote areas of the Pacific Ocean, its participation in the Global Drifter Program will greatly increase data from that area used in mapping surface currents, sea surface temperature, and other data critical to climate forecasting and drift modeling, including models used in search and rescue operations.
