Experts believe that Somalia pirates have done much destruction to the stocks of tuna in the Indian Ocean. It is told that the piracy is the main reason to the falls in tuna catches in Indian Ocean. The head of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission, Alejandro Anganuzzi, explained that the tuna catches fell by about 30 percent last year, seriously affecting the industry.
It is fact that the Seychelles economy has been badly hit as many foreign fishing fleets are based there. The reduced supply because of piracy has also driven up the price of tuna. Record shows that the Indian Ocean tuna industry is said to be worth up to $6 billion. It is revealed that last year Somali pirates took 42 commercial ships with crews hostage.
According to the International Maritime Bureau, including the biggest oil supertanker ever captured, there are numbers of countries began naval patrols off East Africa and in the Gulf of Aden to try to combat the attacks. Anganuzzi also informed that with the threat still present, fishing fleets have had to move further east from the Somali coast. The IOTC opined that about 40 percent of Seychelles’s foreign earnings come from tuna and related industries. French and Spanish fleets based in Seychelles caught only 50 percent of their expected catch.
