The operation came after the Seychelles Fishing Authority (SFA) reported to the French fisheries authority of La Reunion the incursion of the long line Seychelles flagged fishing vessel SHUENN MAN 232, Taiwan owned, into the French Exclusive Economic Zone. The vessel is registered in Seychelles and has no authorization to fish in French waters.
On the 8th August 2009, the fishing vessel SHUENN MAN 232 failed to send its Vessel Monitoring System location data to the Seychelles Fishing Authority. From the date of failure, the vessel reported manually its daily position as per agreed protocol. On Thursday 10th September 2009, the SFA started to receive the VMS signal of the vessel, the Seychelles Fishing Authority had the surprise to monitor the vessel in the Exclusive Economic Zone of the French Territory while the vessel was transmitting manual positions 300 nautical miles south of the exact vessel position, on the high seas. The vessel was also declaring its catch at the false position.
Immediately, the Seychelles Fishing Authority reported the incursion of the vessel into the French Exclusive Economic Zone to the French fisheries authority and request France to mobilize a patrol vessel to intercept the long liner. While the patrol vessels were steaming to reach the area, the Seychelles and France Fisheries Monitoring Centres (FMCs) were monitoring the movements of the vessel.
Jude Talma, Director of the MCS division at the Seychelles Fishing Authority said ‘this vessel provided the SFA false location reports, by possibly hindering the transmission of VMS to our administration in order to avoid being monitored through our VMS system, while engaging in illegal fishing activity in others coastal states waters. The owner and the captain did a serious mistake as Seychelles is strongly committed to eradicate such behaviour’.
While steaming, the vessel was intercepted Sunday 20th September by the patrol vessel into the French territory located in the Mozambican channel, 100 nautical miles south west inside the Europa Island Exclusive Economic Zone. However, the inspection has not permitted to detect infraction to the French legislation. The cargo of the Taiwanese owned vessel comprised tuna species as well as sharks and fins from various species of shark. However, suspected infringements to the Seychelles legislation have been communicated to the SFA by the French FMC.
Following the inspection, the SHUENN MAN 232 was ordered by the Seychelles Fishing Authority to immediately call to the port Victoria Seychelles where further investigation was performed. The owner and the captain of the SHUENN MAN 232 were fined 1.050.000 SCR for supplying false information to the SFA with regards to the position of the fishing operation, for not recording the position of all its fishing operations in its logbook and for contrary to prescribed standard requirement applicable to it by fishing in places not specified in the fishing authorisation. The vessel has been deregistered from the Seychelles National Registry.
The joint operation came after the visit of the EU Commissioner Borg to Seychelles during which Minister Joel Morgan, in charge of fisheries, declared he would implement a zero tolerance policy regarding IUU fishing activities. This operation with the French to have the vessel inspected at sea and submit its report to the SFA and to finally have it report to Port Victoria reiterates the commitment and the determination of the Seychelles Government to fight against illegal fishing activities.
The Seychelles Government is patrolling regularly its waters with two Seychelles Coast Guard patrol vessels, “Topaz” and “Andromach”. To complement this, the Seychelles Fishing Authority has recently signed a chartering agreement with a private company for the provision of a fishery patrol vessel under the command of the SFA, in collaboration with the Seychelles Coastguard, to increase national maritime patrol. Those MCS platforms provide the Seychelles with adequate tool to better control the fishing activity at sea and detect IUU fishing activity. The SFA is also actively participating in EU funded Regional Fishery Surveillance project managed by the Indian Ocean Commission.
