Managing Fishing Vessels: Uncovering the Hidden Ownership of Industrial Fleets

Managing fishing vessels goes far beyond tracking where a boat is registered. In this episode, we dive into Oceana’s Beyond the Flag report to explore how large-scale fishing vessels are often flagged in one country but owned in another, creating dangerous loopholes that allow illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing to thrive. This legal and beneficial ownership opacity undermines ocean governance, drains resources from coastal nations, and hides the true power behind global fishing operations.

Managing fishing vessels transparently is essential for sustainable ocean futures. We discuss why more than 6,900 industrial vessels are shrouded in secrecy, how open registries like Panama and Belize fuel the problem, and what can be done to hold owners accountable. With solutions ranging from public vessel ownership databases to policy reform, this episode highlights how better transparency could transform fisheries management worldwide.

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Episode Transcript

(01:00:00):
You see a seafood label with a country of
origin, but you don't really know where
that fish came from.
Behind every fishing vessel is a story
and sometimes a shell company.
Oceana uncovered a hidden world where
thousands of industrial
fishing ships fly one flag,
but answer to another. Flags of
convenience, foreign

(01:00:20):
ownership, and zero transparency have
become business as usual on the high
seas. This isn't just
paperwork, it's a system that enables
illegal fishing and drains wealth from
coastal communities. When 62% of vessels
lack ownership info,
who is responsible for what happens at
sea? Some nations like
Panama and Belize host fleets,

(01:00:41):
they don't even control, but there's a
movement growing to demand transparency,
accountability, and fairness in global
fisheries. In today's
episode, we uncover the truth behind
the flag and what needs to change because
protecting the ocean starts with knowing
who's really behind the wheel. We're
going to discuss this and more on this
episode of the How to
Protect the Ocean podcast.

(01:01:01):
Let's start the show.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another
exciting episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean podcast.
I'm your host, Andrew Lew, and this is
the podcast where you find out what's
happening with the ocean,
how you can speak up for the ocean and
what you can do to live for a better
ocean by taking action.
On today's episode, I am very delighted
to welcome Oceana's Dr. Daniel Scarritt.

(01:01:22):
He's part of their research team for
their global fisheries unit. This is
going to be one you're going to want to
watch. This is going to be one you're
going to want to listen to if you watch
this on YouTube or listening to this on
your favorite podcast app. We're going to
be talking about this report that came
out in May of 2025 of this year called
Beyond the Flag State Paradigm. It's

(01:01:42):
Beyond the Flag State Paradigm,
reconstructing the world's large scale
fishing fleet through
corporate ownership analysis. What we're
going to be talking about is all the
things that corporations and that the
fishing fleet get away with. It's going
to be really interesting. Daniel breaks
it down for us. He talks about what comes
out of this report, talks about the
recommendations. You know, we get into it

(01:02:03):
a little bit in terms of the weeds of
like what information is missing.
Sometimes just fishing vessel length is
missing and the surprising things of what
people can get away with when they're at
sea. I think this is an interesting
episode for people need to listen to.
Listen and watch very carefully and
really understand how complex fisheries
is. It's about how we can detangle the

(01:02:25):
complexity of global ocean fisheries.
This is what we're going to be talking
about today's episode. I can't wait for
you to listen. But before you do, if you
want to learn more about how to protect
the ocean and be guided to do so, I want
you to join the undertow is this new
company that I am a co founder of with
two incredible people Serena and Amanda.
And we are here to guide you through on how to protect the ocean.

(01:02:47):
Better through the undertow. It's a
digital app about the ocean that we're
creating and I can't wait for you to
join. There's a waiting list right now
because we haven't launched the app.
We're going to be launching the app soon.
I have to do is go to speak up for
blue.com forward slash join the undertow
that speak up for blue.com forward slash
join the undertow. While after you do
that, come back and listening to this

(01:03:08):
episode. It's going to be really
interesting. Here's the interview with
Dr. Dana scare it talking about the new
report from Oceana beyond
the flag state paradigm.
Reconstructing the world's largest scale
fishing fleet through corporate ownership
analysis. We're going to get into it.
It's going to be a lot of fun. Enjoy the
interview and I'll talk to you after.
Hey, Dan. Welcome to the how to protect
the ocean podcast. Are you ready to talk

(01:03:29):
about who owns the fishing vessels?
Absolutely. Yeah, it's there. Wonderful.
I'm excited because this is a topic that
is near and dear to my heart. When I
first started like when I was like a
student, I first started to learn about
fisheries just when I was a student. I started to learn about fisheries.
Just worldwide. I realize how complex it
is and it's not just something like you

(01:03:51):
have a boat. It's registered to such and
such country under such and such
company's name and it's run by a certain
captain and blah, blah, blah. And they go
out and they get this type of fish. They
come back and it's all locked. That's
what I think logically should happen.
Unfortunately, it doesn't work out
completely that way and it can get quite
complex, which makes monitoring fisheries
even more difficult and you work for

(01:04:12):
Oceana. Oceana came out with a report back in the day.
It's a long title. We're going to break it all down for you. And then we might go
a little beyond not only beyond the flag,
but get into the research because Dan,
you are a researcher. So before we get
into all of the report, everything, let's
find out more about you, Dan. Why don't you let us know who you are and what you do. Yeah, cool. I'm Daniel Scarrett. I'm a
senior manager of international fisheries
Oceana and as you implied, I'm not a
campaigner. I'm a researcher and I work

(01:04:34):
in Oceana's global science and strategy
team. So we we support campaign and we
support campaign. And I think we're going
to be able to do that.
I'm a research manager of international
fisheries Oceana and as you implied, I'm
not a campaigner. I'm a researcher and I
work in Oceana's global science and

(01:04:54):
strategy team. So we we support
campaigners throughout all our Oceana
offices and also do kind of some novel
research like this
report you talked about.
And most of the work I do is on
international fisheries, particularly
distant water fishing fleets. These are
the vessels that fish either in the high
seas or away from their home port and in

(01:05:15):
in the waters of other countries.
And, you know, by nature, they're quite
difficult, as you said, to to manage and
our work is, you know, we try to reveal
some of the behaviors and the issues that
are related to that
that kind of fishing fleet.
And when you know you're at this point in
your career now doing this type of work,

(01:05:36):
how did this all begin? Did you expect
when you first started out, you know,
learning about marine science and marine
biology? Did you expect
to be where you are today?
No.
My background was in was in fisheries
ecology, you know, and as you said about
complexity, right? Like, you know, the

(01:05:56):
ecosystem that all these fishing fleets
rely on and are
extracting an insanely complex.
And now a lot of the time, you know, it's

(01:06:17):
more about kind of politics and corporate
power as we'll get onto. But no, I didn't
I didn't expect this.
But I'm happy that I've kind of followed
that thread to the place I am now. Yeah.
Well, when you first like when I first
started out, you know, I was always like
I'm going to it's all about the animals.
It's all about, you know, food webs and
animal biology and conservation. So I

(01:06:38):
want to protect, you know, fish and
corals and seagrasses and mangroves and
all these different types of wonderful
habitats that, you know, I learned as I
grew up and I saw in these documentaries
and and I quickly realized probably about
after like during my master's degree, I
quickly realized that
if we want to manage.

(01:06:59):
And of course, I've confirmed this with a
number of other researchers and
colleagues that if we want to manage, you
know, fisheries, if we want to manage the
ocean properly, we
have to manage the people.
And and Dr. Ed Heinz was on is the one
who really kept that. He told me that one
time and I was like, that is probably
into the mantra of conservation. At what

(01:07:21):
point did you realize
first, do you agree with that?
And also like in what if you do, at what
point did you realize that that was
really what we we needed to focus on?
Yeah, no, I mean, I do agree with that. I
think, you know, having said that, I
think without my kind of fisheries
background, that fisheries science

(01:07:42):
background, I wouldn't be able to do what
I do as well. I don't think I think
understanding that kind of
the biological aspect of it.
Right. That that that impacts the
societal, you know, the way these fishing
fleets behave, right? They follow
currents and they follow the fish.
So I think that there's a fundamental
necessity, as you said, to kind of
understand the ecology

(01:08:03):
and the biology beneath it.
But I think I first realized about, as
you say, that fisheries management is
probably as much about
managing people as it is about fish.
When I first started working with fishes
and directly going on fishing boats and,
you know, kind of realizing, you know,
every day they're out there making these
kind of decisions exactly where to fish,

(01:08:24):
you know, how to fish and different parts
of the fishing fleet and fishing vessels
within that are
behaving differently, right?
Like they don't all have, they're not
going out on this kind of nine to five
logging in fishing in a particular area
coming home. Like, you know, there's this
kind of behavioral strategies between the
different individuals and kind of
realizing that that human aspect of

(01:08:45):
fisheries and the individuality of those
people, just as you have in fish, I
guess, you know, really kind of triggered
that for me of realizing like the people
are as important as the fish.
But ultimately, you know, it starts by
trying to conserve the fish without the
fish. There isn't the jobs.
So, you know, you have to conserve the
fish to have the jobs that rely on them.

(01:09:07):
Yeah, it's such a dependable
relationship, you know, when you really
think about having that understanding.
Because like when I first got into it, I
was all about stock assessments and I'm
like, this is where the
bulk of the data lies.
And it's a very
important part of the data.
And you have worked over before we press
record, you're telling me
you've worked in Canada.
So, you know, a little bit of the history

(01:09:28):
of stock assessments, you know, and in
the role that plays in really
understanding the dynamics of how
fisheries are doing and assessing how
fisheries are doing and how sometimes
politicians don't listen to the stock
assessment biologists and to and you
know, and it and it has, you know,
consequences to that.

(01:09:49):
You know, we're looking at the cod
fishery in the early 90s and so forth in
the recovery from that. And even to this
day, it seems like there, you know,
politicians are still not
listening to the science.
And I would say this works all in between
all three of those from the scientists,
the government and the fishers.
You know, one of my favorite books I
would recommend for anyone who's in

(01:10:09):
fishery sciences, Fishing for Truth,
right, which is all about the cod
collapse on the on the in eastern Canada.
That talks about how, you know,
scientists as well weren't listening to
fishers who weren't listening.
You know, there was there was a
miscommunication and the end result was
this collapse of one of
the biggest fisheries ever.
I think. Yeah. Yeah. And still is, you

(01:10:30):
know, many parts isn't recovered.
So, you know, I would recommend that book
to understand the importance of people in
the fisheries and sadly, you know, the
not only did the people lose out, but,
you know, in this case,
the fish stock as well.
Absolutely.

(01:11:13):
So, you know, I think that's a really interesting question.
I mean, I think the scientists, the
scientists, just the people in general
have has improved in terms of
communication or do you think it's still
similar as it was in
the early 90s or even 80s?
I don't I don't think it's quite the
same. You know, I'd love
to be really positive here.
But it's not.
It's what it's all about.
But, you know, sadly, there's many fish

(01:11:34):
stocks, as you know, in Canada, as there
are here in the UK and in our waters that
are still overfished, right?
They're still actively being overfished
as well and not just
in an overfished state.
So I wouldn't say that
we've kind of we've made it.
But I do think there's a lot more
understanding of that
need for communication.
Like there is a lot more importance put

(01:11:55):
on the need for kind of consultation for
for having those voices.
I think the issue might be how do you
then you know, those conversations may be
happening, maybe not
to a sufficient extent.
I think the issue is still how do we how
do we really implement that into our
stock assessments, how we set
catches and things like that.
I know I know in Canada at the moment,

(01:12:15):
you know, there's a big kind of
discussion as well about how to bring an
industry and First Nation, you know,
these these different ways of thinking
about how we should manage fish stocks.
And I think a really good start is having
those conversations,
knowing it needs to be done.
You know, I'm I'm sure there are great
examples where it's happening and we

(01:12:36):
could see and there are obviously
examples where it
absolutely isn't happening.
So I think we I think we are progressing.
But obviously, you know, that kind of
golden, you know, standard of fishery
science is still not not is, you know, is
still elusive across every
fishery that that we look at.
Yeah, definitely something that needs to
be improved upon. And I think we'll

(01:12:56):
always need to be improved upon. There's
there's a lot of stuff going on in the
dynamics between almost the different
silos of those aspects that we discussed,
you know, the science, the politicians
and and, you know,
fishers, indigenous fishers.
You know, there are definitely some
conflicts in Canada and worldwide, you
know, that we could highlight here for

(01:13:18):
days, you know, it's that's probably an
entire separate podcast, not even
episode, but just podcast itself on on
the the evolution of of that, that type
of of conflict as well as hopefully
resolution in the
future and more resolutions.
There are examples, there are some great
examples, there are some awful examples
as well. But we're here to talk about the

(01:13:38):
I don't want to get I go on tangents and
I apologize, but, you know, it's really
interesting when you talk about people
managing fisheries is what we really, you
know, focus on a lot of the times.
And that seems to be your focus. How did
that transition like happen in your
career where you started to see that

(01:13:59):
light words like, okay, no, we need to
start looking at how how fishing vessels
and fisheries are are managed in general
from the the vessel
aspect, like who's fishing where?
What are the policies around that? What
are the interesting international and
national laws around that? How did that
transition happen for you?
Yeah, I guess it was quite quite

(01:14:20):
abruptly, actually. So after I finished
my my PhD and first postdoc, which I said
was all about ecology and behaviors of
shellfish actually
lobsters in particular.
And I went and worked for a consultancy
firm in London, Emrag, and we were doing
a lot of evaluation for the European

(01:14:40):
Commission as well as UK government. And,
you know, we to start with a lot of that
work was around catch
setting tax and quotas.
But obviously, a lot of that was also not
just how do we set that tack and the
total allowable catch and the quotas to
catch that. But then how how is it being
kept? Who is catching it? And yeah, you

(01:15:01):
know, actually measuring kind of the
catch against what we've said is allowed
to be called is completely rely on who's
being allocated it, where they're getting
that fish, you know, where they're going
and catching that tack.
And, you know, and the trade of that. So
when we start when I started doing a lot
more policy evaluation for the
commission, you know, a lot more of it

(01:15:22):
was focused on on that side of it, the
policy of, you know, of how do we
implement this with the people rather
than the fishery science, which was so
often fed in kind of, you know,
externally by ISIS, actually, in that in
that in that case, right?
It's an interesting matter, because like,
I remember growing up here and listening
to the news, I forget when it actually

(01:15:43):
happened, but it must have been in the
90s. And it was, you know, going back to
cod, there was a news piece that was on
how there are foreign fishing vessels
fishing at our the border of our
exclusive economic zone in Canada, and
they're fishing for cod and it got to the
point where we sent out, you know,
Canada, the government of Canada sent out coast guard vessels.

(01:16:06):
To intercept them and to basically chase
them off and to arrest them if they were
in our waters. And I think that was the
first time where I was like, wow, so
people are coming across like cross the
Atlantic. These were European vessels
across the Atlantic fishing for for for
like for cod, and they're not allowed to

(01:16:27):
and they're still doing it.
And then you start to think about as I
started to go through university, you
hear more and more about illegal
fisheries and how difficult it is to
monitor how difficult it is to stop the
illegal fisheries from happening. You
can't be out on a vessel.
Enforcement's difficult and I learned how
more and more how complex it became. Can

(01:16:47):
you talk about, we'll get into, let's get
into the report a bit, but just the
overall like the where the fishing vessel
sort of research is at.
To this point, can you give the audience
a bit of an overview of the report and
especially like just in the context of
where we're at and understanding how

(01:17:10):
fishing vessels are managed worldwide.
Yeah. Yes. And as you said at the
beginning, again, complexity of this is,
is, is, is, is complexity
runs through fisheries, right?
Completely. And the same in when I talk
about these fishing vessels, there's a
divert whole diversity of fishing
vessels, the gear they use, the size of

(01:17:30):
them, how they operate.
I say I tend to work on the largest of
these fishing vessels, these distant
water fishing vessels and and managing
and understanding them is really
difficult because by their nature,
they're hard to govern.
They operate really far distances from
their home port. They may not even go
back to their home port for many years at

(01:17:50):
a time because they can they can
transship they can offload their catch at
sea to another vessel
and continue fishing.
They can be resupplied refueled. So
they're away for long periods of time,
often fishing in the high seas or in the
waters of other of other of other
countries and by their very nature,
they're very transient.
They can be following in the case of tuna

(01:18:12):
stocks. They could be following these
fish all around whole oceanic basins.
And so that makes them really hard to
observe, even harder to kind of control
and understand. And technology, I know
you've had colleagues from
Global Fishing Watch recently.
Technology is making a lot easier to
understand that, to be able to observe
those at sea activities. But, you know,

(01:18:33):
still identifying wrongdoing is one
thing, actually holding those people to
account and actually making sure, you
know, the punishments are kind of handed
down and are appropriate and are large
enough to prevent that activity happening
again in the future.
That's the difficult bit. That's the bit
where technology is helping. But we

(01:18:53):
really need better policy and better
enforcement of these regulations.
And to bring it to the report, the
reason, you know, beneficial ownership
comes into that is that often when these
vessels are caught doing legal fishing,
you know, if there is any punishment,
it's usually the crew or the skipper, you
know, those who actually have the least
kind of power or maybe benefit from these

(01:19:16):
situations, you know,
from the fishing enterprise.
They're some they're often ones that are
punished while, you know, the owners or
the managers kind of get away with it and
that those crew can be
quite easily replaced.
You know, the wing is now a global sector
where crew can be flown around from all
shipped around from

(01:19:37):
anywhere to replace these crew.
Skippers can be easily replaced. The
vessel can be renamed, re-flagged to
another country. And it goes out the next
week and continues fishing, you know.
And I think that's the big issue here is
these operations, especially these
multi-jurisdictional international
fishing vessels, they seem to be able to
kind of get away with some of these

(01:19:58):
these, you know, fishing, regular
breaking fishing rules and regulations.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's complicated. I hope
that answered your question.
You know, one thing I was thinking, as
you were mentioning, I was thinking of
like an analogy to that is, you know,
when you it's almost like organized crime
and sometimes in some
cases, sometimes it is.

(01:20:18):
Yeah. But it's almost like organized
crime where they they quote unquote,
employ, you know, children under the age
of a certain age so that when they get
caught doing the petty crimes that help,
you know, fund these this organized
crime, they get less punishment.
They go to jail, but they get out, you
know, a lot sooner because the punishment

(01:20:39):
is less. And I think the same thing you
can say, depending on where they get
caught in terms of the fishing vessels,
you know, the crew, the skipper, and
sometimes the crew is not
even supposed to be on that ship.
They're, they're, they're what we call
fishery slaves, but they get less of a
punishment than what the owners should
get. But because you can never really
find the owners. It's difficult when you

(01:21:01):
look at the paper trail of who owns what
I covered a story a number of years ago on this project.
And I remember this podcast, this has
been running for about 10 years, this
podcast, but I remember this story where
we talked about a fishing vessel that was
notorious for being reflagged, renamed
and caught again and then reflagged,
renamed and then, you know, just went
around the world and

(01:21:21):
people were trying to catch it.
And when they did, they could not figure
out who owned it. It was like, you know,
it would be like bouncing. It was like
one of those mission and possible style
shows, but, but fishing related because
it became that complex.
And there was a lot, there were a lot of
players that some were okay and some
were, you know, illegal and part of

(01:21:42):
organized crime. And it, and it just, it
was like an untangled web and you just,
you just sit there and you're like, how
is this like where we've come to, you
know, where it becomes even more complex
to break down these, these webs and these
chains of, you know, of who
owns these fishing vessels.
And then you look at sort of the

(01:22:03):
infrastructure of how this is done and
including this report, like just some of
the highlights of this report, I'll just,
I'll just kind of name like we, we, like
the legal in ownership of fit of like
information for our 62%
of the vessels is missing.
That's, that's over the majority. That's
in. So one in six vessels are legally
owned in a country different from their

(01:22:24):
state flag. So we'll talk about that. And
actually, let's talk about that now. What
does that mean? So that, you know, you
have a, you have a flag like the, that
you fly on the ship, but then the owner
could be in another country.
How can they, how can they get away with
putting a flag out from a different
country if they're, if the owner and say
the US or Canada or the

(01:22:45):
UK or other countries?
Yeah. I mean, yeah. Re-flagging a vessel
is, is, is all legal and above board. You
know, this has happened for, for decades.
I think, I think initially from in the
merchant Navy, you know, merchant
shipping would, would, would use these
flag reflagged maybe to be able to enter the ship.
Yeah. And to port more easily, things

(01:23:07):
like that. And so they get away with it
because it's, it's, it's legal. The issue
we have often is particularly with flags,
flag States is that there's not always
the same regulation or, or, or threshold
for entry to be flagged to a nation. So
if I had a boat and we had, we had a boat
together and we wanted to get flagged in
the US, that would be, that would be,

(01:23:28):
there'd be a lot of, you know, legal
thresholds for us to meet in order for us
to be able to fly that flag.
We also have at the, at the other end of
the scale, what we call these open
registries or flags of convenience. And
this is where it can become a bit of an
issue because the threshold for entry can
be a lot lower. So you may not need any
economic kind of tie to that country. You

(01:23:49):
may not even have ever had
to set foot in that country.
No, but the register that you can
register your vessel on is open. So
you'll pay some kind of fee and then you
can go in there and I can get the flag
off Panama or Belize, for example. And
that allows me then to fish under that
States jurisdiction. That state is then
legally in charge of all the regulatory

(01:24:15):
and social conditions on,
on, on my fishing vessel.
And if they have much, much lower rules
than say the US do, you might want to
inspect my fishing vessel, ensure that
working conditions are good for my crew.
If the other flag where I've gone this
flag of convenience don't have that, you
know, it means that there's the
opportunity for me to get away with not

(01:24:35):
meeting those, those, you know, those,
those regulatory kind of threshold.
Threshold doesn't mean that everyone
who's using the flag conveniences, you
know, is is is is lowering their
standards. It means that they're innate,
they're allowed to it. It's an
opportunity for them to to reduce
standards for safety, for how they're
fishing, for the control
and monitoring of that vessel.

(01:24:57):
Now, and with that, it says just 10
countries legally own more than half of
the fleet, which for which data is
available. So what does that mean? Like
looking at ownership concentration?
Yeah, yeah, this is a, this is a really,

(01:25:18):
I feel like this is increasing in the in
the in the literature, this this issue
because mainly because of the, you know,
the the the state of fisheries at the
moment, I think as well.
And also just ocean economy broadly is
massively expanding. So there's corporate
interests in expanding into the ocean and

(01:25:38):
investing into the ocean and get to get a
return on investment.
And so we kind of chatted before we
filmed about this idea or people might
have a vision of the fishing industry is
these localized fishing vessels going out
maybe for the day, really early in the
morning, catching some fresh fish and
bringing it back to market.
And that certainly is the case for the

(01:25:59):
majority actually of fishing boats around
the world. But there's also this kind of
part of the industry that is, that is in
heavily financialized, heavily invested
in, you know, in order to make profit.
That's the main goal. It's not a pastime
or, you know, a livelihood as such, you
know, and this is these corporate actors

(01:26:19):
that are coming in. And we see
concentration of
ownership for a few reasons.
It might be due to the fact that, for
example, when a fishery is overfished and
there's less fish to catch, you know, and
you've got 100 boats that may be a
catching that stock if if their captures,
you know, what they're allowed to capture
is reducing because a
fish stock is overfished.
It becomes much more difficult for them

(01:26:40):
to turn a profit. And so we often see,
you know, people leaving the industry for
that reason. And that's
when you can get consolidation.
You know, you can also get consolidation
just when there's so much power starts
being concentrated, they essentially have
the money and the means to be able to buy
out with the people
from the fishing industry.
And so, you know, consolidation isn't all

(01:27:01):
this, as you get this concentration of
ownership isn't inherently bad, but we
need to be able to understand, you know,
how bad it is in order for essentially
the public to make a call like, do we
want our fishing, our fish
in the UK to be exploited?
Do we want the UK to be exploited by a
handful of corporations or do we want it
to be spread out between more people?

(01:27:21):
Yeah, I mean, that's really stopping
them. And I mean, we've seen other
corporations, you know, here in Canada,
we see the telecommunications, you know,
monopoly of like, you know, two or three
companies who pretty much set the
standard and don't allow other companies
to come in because
it's competition for them.
They get involved in government, they get
more power and stuff. And that happens

(01:27:42):
across industries, including the fishing
industry. They want to keep that that
power. They want to keep that money to
themselves. They don't
want other players to come in.
But then if if they make a decision that
is not right for for, you know, the the
ecosystem, you know, for that fishery,
for whatever reason, whether it be more
money, more power, that could really turn

(01:28:03):
quickly, you know, as we've seen in other in other industries.
So is that is that essentially the worry,
the concern on or at
least one of the concerns?
Yeah, for sure. You know, that when you
get these really dominant firms, this,
you know, there is the ability for them
to first exercise that market power.
So they because they're earning such

(01:28:24):
excess profits or can be an excess
profits, it allows them to almost be able
to set the price, potentially suppress
wages or weaken livelihood opportunities
for the fisher. Again, I'm not saying
this is what happens.
I'm just saying that is a theoretical.
This is, you know, what we see in
economic theory. The second thing is

(01:28:45):
they're able to like shape the actual
conditions of, you know, the food system
itself. So they can be determined.
You know, what types of, you know, how is
this fish process? What is it because
they because they have such control over
the market, they can determine what are
the products? What's the quality of that
product that's being fed into the market?
Because essentially, you know, end up can
monopolize this, this market. And then

(01:29:06):
the third one, as you alluded to that,
that these dominant firms can kind of a
concern on that is that excess political
power, that ability to not only shape the
economics or the or the or the physical power.
And that's the physical reality of these
food system, food systems, but also the
policies. Now, if you have that much

(01:29:26):
power, and as you said, in other systems,
you know, we see this a lot, probably a
little less in fisheries, but it
definitely happens, right?
Like, we definitely know that there are
there are lobbying. I mean, you know, and
so so that's the part of the issue is
that is the distribution of power, you
know, and that can result as a
concentration of that
access or or ownership.

(01:29:49):
Yeah, no, absolutely. Absolutely. Really
interesting. Let's talk about registries
here. The one of the highlights that
really stood out to me, Panama believes
Honduras top the list of flagging vessels
legally owned by foreign corporations.
Why these countries? Is it just because
of the standards that they have? Maybe
it's easier to own vessels in that

(01:30:11):
country with that flag, as you mentioned
earlier, in terms of like, maybe they can
get away with a little bit more, they
have a little bit more flexibility than
than other countries.
Yeah, I mean, these particularly Panama,
this is, you know, I guess a political
decision to be a flag that allows other,

(01:30:32):
you know, organizations, companies from
different countries to flag to them, you
know, it brings in it can bring in quite
a lot of foreign currency, which can be a
really good thing to help, you know,
develop the country.
Obviously, Panama is intrinsically linked
to fishing, right? Right. The Panama
Canal. So of course, a lot of this is
kind of historical as well and and stuff.

(01:30:53):
But but yeah, that the openness of the
ability to have an open or the presence
of that open registry leads them to be to
be, you know, the key flag state.
So Panama, Belize, 100 Liberia as well,
for example, they're big flag states in
merchant shipping as well. Fishing

(01:31:14):
obviously is kind of just followed suit.
So of course, I don't think it's
necessarily and cruise ships as well,
actually, in the case of
I think Panama and Belize.
And so it's that it's that the threshold
to entry is much lower. And so, you know,
and also it can be some of these flag
states can offer kind of more different
incentives. So some of them may be lower

(01:31:35):
registration fees, some
of them may be anonymity.
Right. So in Panama, we all probably
heard about the Panama papers that
released in certainly hit the UK very in
the news very heavily.
So that level of anonymity, anonymity can
also be quite attractive to to
corporations. And then, as you said, that
potentially lower regulations in terms

(01:31:57):
of, you know, crewing regulations or
working conditions or maybe even the
monitoring of what they're doing at sea.
Yeah. So can you just go into a little
bit more detail of that, that news that
came out that hit that had written a
little bit with the
anonymity and anonymity?
Yes, so I don't I don't I'm not across

(01:32:17):
the story completely, but the Panama
Papers was essentially a leak of I think
thousands of kind of registered
corporations and people that had
registered accounts in
the Panama in Panama.
And it kind of showed like who they were,
what what income they were getting. And,
you know, there was quite a few, if I

(01:32:39):
remember at the time, politically, you
know, involved people were
on this list. Right. Right.
It was it was basically a big a big leak
on and that led to a lot of these
discussions, particularly on beneficial
ownership in fact, in Europe of, you
know, especially if you're a politician,
but but for, you know, these people is is
what do you own where in

(01:33:00):
the world, you know, because
part of this of knowing these owners is
is also from a government perspective,
being able to levy them and tax them
appropriately because, you know, that's
an issue, particularly in the EU is if
you don't know what what investments and
interests they own, it becomes very
difficult to know, you know, what's a

(01:33:21):
fair taxation for these for these people.
Yeah. And where are those? Where's
where's where's where is their money
being invested elsewhere in the world?
Yeah. And then is it, you know, on the up
and up to, you know, if that money is
being invested is where it's going. Yeah.
Transparency is such a big key that gets
lost in a lot of these things. We talk

(01:33:41):
about, you know, concentrations and what
countries hold a lot of the flag
ownership and so forth.
We look at impacts on those states, on
those coastal states and how, you know,
this type of work impacts those. So like,
for instance, like, how does a opaque
ownership, like reduce revenue and

(01:34:03):
enforcement capacity for
some of these coastal nations?
Yeah, so for the coastal nations, as we
talked about before, you know, a big part
of it for enforcement is knowing who is
accountable for that for that vessel.
As I said, you know, you might you might
you might find a vessel doing some
illegal fishing and you can stop it. And,
you know, at that point, all you have is

(01:34:23):
the crew and the people on the boat. And
that's not always sufficient to prevent
that boat from being able
to continue in the future.
Yeah. And then I mean, one of the other
issues is, you know, if I'm a coastal
state and vessels are coming to fish in
my water or wanting to flag to that, not
knowing who they are means I don't really

(01:34:44):
know the background of them.
I don't know what other fisheries they're
involved with, they've had, you know,
broken the rules elsewhere, whether this
vessel that's coming to fish here now has
fished in, you know, all these other
coastal states and maybe
has been kicked out of them.
You know, I don't know that if I don't
know who the owner is and what are the
interests that they're connected to. And

(01:35:06):
I think that's the big, a big part of it
as well is knowing who they are because,
you know, and the risks involved, you
know, it's hard to do a full risk
assessment if I don't know who the
companies and the people are
behind this fishing vessel.
Do you have like a specific, like real
world example of something that's

(01:35:26):
happened, you know, where like the, you
know, these coastal nations kind of paid
the price or, you know, or we're starting
to see this type of action
happening in a coastal nation?
And not off the top of my head, but I
will give a good example of I think the
difficulties that not just coastal

(01:35:46):
states, but anyone involved in fisheries
enforcement have is this example of a
policy brief that I collaborated with my
colleagues in Oceania, Europe with, I
think it was about six months ago, about
this, this series of vessels all owned by
one company, they're all
named after different whales.
It was like, you know, the fin whale, the
second right whale. I can't remember,

(01:36:07):
there's about six of these vessels and we
kind of did all this analysis looking at
where they'd been fishing.
Many of them have been caught illegally
fishing in the past. And we looked at
their history of ownership and flagging
and where they'd been fishing.
You know, ownership had changed between
different EU member states to Russia back
to EU member states and where they were

(01:36:28):
flagged to, you know, have no connection
to who owned them or
where they were fishing.
And we wrote this report kind of saying,
you know, there's some kind of link to
eat an EU member state here. This is
worrying. And by the time we gave, I
think we gave the company notice, you
know, just to make sure we're writing
about this company,
they should have notice.
About a week later, when we actually
launched the report the day before all

(01:36:50):
these vessels were reflagged. And so the
report was instantly out of date. And
that just shows you how how
quickly these vessels can move.
You know, you think you've got them
pinned and then suddenly they're
reflagged somewhere else. And so if
you're working with the flag state where
they are now trying to, you know, get
them hold them to account for some of

(01:37:11):
their previous actions.
You know, suddenly they're based on the
other side of the world. By the time
you're actually trying to get some
movement. So, you know, the speed at
which this happens is
is quite surprising.
These vessels can almost disappear like a
magic trick reappear.
That's fascinating in a way, you got to

(01:37:31):
give them their respect in terms of how
quickly they can maneuver. They've
obviously seen this happen before and
they've been able to overcome it.
How do we like, you know, as people who
want to manage fisheries better, how do
we prevent this from happening?
Like what's what's the mechanism that we
as people who, you know, scientists and
conservationists and people all around

(01:37:53):
the world, like it doesn't matter what
country you live in.
Like you can't we can't let this happen.
How does this how do we stop
this this type of behavior?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, right.
Yeah, I know. If I knew, I mean, I'd be
out of work tomorrow if we answered it.
But I think it's again,

(01:38:15):
it's incredibly complex, right?
I think there's multiple parts at which
we need better policies, better
regulations and better implementation of
them. So, you know, at the flag state
level, when a vessel is being flagged to
your country, you know, to your flag to
fly your flag is to ensure that you're
collecting that information.
Yeah, okay, I want to know the beneficial

(01:38:37):
owners. That's the the individual human
at the top of that ownership change,
because we haven't even talked about
that, actually, the fact that you're not
just one company and a person, there can
be a network of shell companies.
So, so, so, so, so at the flag state
level, it's that it's okay, you want to
flag to my I need to know who are the
people behind this show me, you know, I
need to know all that kind of ownership

(01:38:58):
chain behind you before you can even be
registered, you know,
then ideally that these flag states
automate that information public or to
the extent that they're able to. And then
there's the coastal states, that's where
these vessels then go fishing. And again,
that's another opportunity to say, you
know, you have license to now come and
fish our waters and take our some of our

(01:39:20):
fish to do that, you know, here's some
thresholds you have to meet some
standards you have to meet.
Yeah, and again, one of those could be,
you know, we want to know the history of
your fishing, where you fished for the
last six months, for say,
like some some VMS tracking data.
Yeah, and as well, yeah, who, who are
your owners and what other vessels today
own what, what the risks involved of us

(01:39:42):
allowing your vessel to come in, enter
our waters and take our
publicly owned resource.
Yeah, so so there's there as well. And
then there's also the market state. So
once that fish is kind of is, you know,
ultimately that fish is worthless until
it comes to land until
it's landed and actually sold.
And so through the port state, that's
where they had landed the fish and then

(01:40:02):
the market state where that fish is
eventually sold for consumption. You
know, you can you can bring in
regulations there like trying to trace
that fish like, can you show me who
caught it and, you know,
and that ownership chain.
Yeah. So there's many places and again,
this is why makes it hard because of
course, if any of those places, there's a
weak link, you know,

(01:40:23):
it's all your forefather.
Yeah. And of course, everybody's gonna go
and get their ship flagged in that in
that state because that's where it's
easier. It's you know, it's very similar
to, you know, when we look at fisheries,
the actual fisheries and the
supply chain of those fisheries.
I think the Marine Stewardship Council
has been pretty adamant about tracking
where from the point of catch all the way

(01:40:44):
to the point of sale of how like let's
let's track who's involved
in that that supply chain.
So it makes it more transparent. You can
tell, you know, which fish is there. You
can decrease, you know, the the I guess
the number of times there's
fraud like fisheries fraud.
I saw this Oceana reports a number of
years ago highlighted where I think in

(01:41:06):
some cases in Toronto is like like 48% of
the fish were like fraud fraudulent
depending on the fish and which is scary.
Like you if you try to buy something
that's sustainable, but it's not the fish
that you think you're buying, which is an
unsustainable caught fish.
You know, you're you're you just
unknowingly, you know, participate in

(01:41:26):
this kind of action. It's almost like we
need the same thing for the ownership of
the vessels, you know, like just making
sure that we can track and like take away
these shell companies
and it's like owner.
All right, here's the owner. This is the
vessel that they own. Here's where they
have all their flag vessels and do they
have a good report in one country

(01:41:47):
compared to another country? And if they
don't, maybe they should pay for that by
not being able to flag a vessel in
another country and they're just able to
flag, you know, in one or two, one or two
countries and be monitored specifically
for for that action.
I think that's you know, is that like, I
mean, I feel like that's a fair and

(01:42:08):
transparent way of of tracking these
vessels doesn't have to be available to
the public, but to some of these
organizations, like maybe Oceana or
somebody like that, where they can
actually track these this type of of I
guess business chain, you
know, who owns these vessels.
Yeah, I mean, that's the goal. Yeah.

(01:42:28):
We campaign Oceana and many of our NGO
colleagues for publicly disclosed
ownership databases that that is that is
that that is what we want. That is our
gold standard to have beneficial
ownership of EU flag vessels at minimum
in the EU to be publicly available.
Then for these member states to make
their citizens and the companies

(01:42:49):
registered there to also disclose what
what financial interests or other
interests they have in in other countries
and for that to be publicly disclosed.
But we know that some countries do
collect this information, but maybe don't
share it. We also know that in some
countries, you know, different government
departments might collect this

(01:43:09):
information and don't then share it with
the fisheries ministry or
the fisheries authorities.
So there's an issue of the data either
not existing when it does exist as an
issue of it not being shared properly.
And then we have this issue of the data
not aligning. So, you know, the the
definition of a beneficial
owner or how we identify it.

(01:43:30):
Identify that ownership doesn't match up.
So, you know, this makes it really
difficult for for outsiders, as it were,
like myself who want access this to
understand that better to try and
communicate that to the public.
You know, often we we pay all the
organizations who collect this
information. So even the information used

(01:43:51):
in this report isn't technically public
information because it's behind the
paywall. Right. So and
it's not a small pay.
You know, it's not significant. So it's
not available to the majority of people.
Majority of people in a country can't
find out who the owners of these fishing
vessels are that are fishing this
publicly owned resource.
And again, this doesn't say there aren't

(01:44:12):
great examples of where we're seeing
improvement. You know, obviously I tend
to focus on the worst examples because
that's why we're trying to
get the most improvement, right?
Right. Of course. Yeah. If you can get
the improvement for that, then you're
already increasing the level of
efficiency and protection. You know, this
is a big report. It's an
important report for my audience.

(01:44:34):
Like what were the big like policy
recommendations in this report and policy
brief? Yeah. So the main one is as I was
alluding to earlier about how do we try
and fix this is for flag states to a
collect beneficial ownership information.
Or at least, you know, this report we

(01:44:55):
focused on what we call the legal owners,
which is the corporations, the beneficial
owners are the usually the shareholders
that the humans at the top of that chain.
So it's for flag states to collect that
information, you know, when they license
a vessel or when they renew a license and
to ensure that
information is kept up to date.
As we said earlier, this this can change

(01:45:15):
so quickly. Right. So for flag states to
collect that and ideally
make that publicly available.
And for the companies themselves to
disclose to their their their their
states of incorporation. So that's where
those companies are based.
Those countries should be asking their

(01:45:36):
companies to tell them, like, what do you
own? You know, what what investments do
you have around the world? Because it'd
be good to know that.
We have to know if you know if we have a
citizen that's invested in fishing off of
Namibia or in the Pacific, you know,
Pacific Islands. Right.
And I think as well, one of the big
recommendations is just for there to be a

(01:45:58):
lot more effort in kind of sharing
information, understanding these systems.
You know, what do we know? What are you
doing in your authorities and your
enforcement agencies? Can you share that
with other enforcement agencies so that
we sort of everybody's
brought up to that standard?
Because we know the EU have one of the
most sophisticated systems for trying to

(01:46:21):
stop you in the world and still, you
know, they have to get it right 100
percent of the time.
The EU fishes only have to get it right
once. Right. Right. Right. Can they kind
of share this knowledge and training with
with other coastal states to try and
improve the overall system?
And then the final thing we kind of in

(01:46:41):
the report we suggested was around
ensuring that all large scale fishing
vessels have a unique identifying number.
So ideally, an IMO number. This is the
International Maritime Organization. And
and this is a number that's unique to a
fishing vessel, regardless of they
repaint it, rename it, reflag

(01:47:02):
it or the ownership changes.
It stays with that that fishing vessel in
the in the US and Canada and the UK are
the only place I've had cars. You know,
we have a VIN, right,
vehicle identification.
And it's like hammered into the chassis
of your car. So it'd be similar to that.
So regardless of what modifications and
what happens that boat, that boat is

(01:47:24):
identifiable throughout its lifetime.
And then connected to that in the IMO in
the IMO registry, you know, I think we
believe they should be then asking for
ownership information.
And of course, just with a car when you
know that VIN exchanges the pink slips,
you know, the ownership, you have to
report that, right? You just can't buy a

(01:47:44):
car and go driving it the next day. No.
But you can buy a fishing vessel and
start going, you know, fishing the next
day. Unreal. It's a little bit more
complicated than that. But simply that's
the way is like identify these fishing
vessels and have that
linked to ownership.
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's that's
yeah, that's that makes sense to me. All
of these. This makes sense to me,
obviously, not as easy to

(01:48:07):
implement as we we hope.
But hopefully we can get there with the
added pressure of, you know, reports like
these to say, hey, you know, this is
what's happening. You guys, we all need
to know about this. And we need to start
putting pressure on on people.
As a researcher, I'm curious, what was
the most surprising reveal that you have

(01:48:27):
come across when, you know, creating a
report like this or
contributing to a report like this?
Like for you, out of all of these items
that we discussed, what was the most
surprising for that for you,
like the that you uncovered?
Yeah, that's a really
good question, actually.
I think some of the surprises I thought

(01:48:52):
might happen, the surprise was maybe the
scale. So in terms of data gaps, you
know, we knew that
we're going to be data gaps.
Yeah, data was going to be patchy and
imperfect. I didn't know that would be
this level, you know, some of these
vessels that we were trying to identify
in the in the IMO registry didn't even
have like information
like the length of it.
You know, which like surely is quite a

(01:49:14):
standard piece of information. How big is
this boat was not available for all these
vessels and obviously the ownership
information being being missing for two
thirds of the fishing
fleet was quite surprising.
And there was a few, I think, surprises
that, you know, and of course, I work on
in session on global fisheries, but I,

(01:49:36):
you know, I can't have a knowledge of all
these different coastal states.
And there was a few surprises like
Argentina popping up as like having quite
high proportions of foreign
ownership of its fishing fleet.
And I assume I think that that would be
kind of a historical, you know, there was
a lot of Spanish
ownership, for example, there.
And I'm probably also access to some of

(01:49:57):
the fish stocks that are in that part of
the world for particular
companies and fishing fleets.
So there was a few surprises like that
that popped up and there was a few
individual cases. I quite liked looking
at individual vessels.
You know, of course, I love
this high level information.
But it says individual little stories of
like a vessel that's like registered

(01:50:18):
here, flagged their fishing here.
And we did an EU specific policy brief
that that went into a bit more detail on
these individual vessels.
We kind of made passports for them and
had all these stamps of where they'd
where they'd gone and fish
and how the ownership changed.
So I think they're the ones I find maybe
the most surprising is, you know, you're

(01:50:40):
finding links between, as I said, Europe,
Russia and the US and West Africa.
And it's just how does that happen? Like
how how these humans involved that have
these investments and
connections in all these places?
And, you know, we're just looking this
data, this kind of paper trail.

(01:51:00):
But obviously, these are all, you know,
deals or purchases and
exchanges that happened.
And yeah, I think I think they're the
ones that kind of surprised me the most
with those individual little stories that
I'd love to know more about.
Yeah, absolutely. Here's an interesting
idea. You know, they how they have like,
you know, you can you can track animals
that are tagged, you know, like fish or
sharks or whale sharks

(01:51:22):
and so forth on an app.
Imagine if you could track fishing
vessels, like individual fishing vessels
and it'd be like, oh, how are they all
the way in the Indian Ocean when they
started off in the Pacific or, you know,
be able to see and almost like it's it's
almost like highlighting them in a
surprising way, but a more transparent
way where people can actually see where
these fishing vessels go and where they unload and think they're going to be able to see where they're going.
So, yeah, I think, you know, if youcould just take a look at the

(01:51:42):
show and see what you can do, you know, if you can just talk about what you have, you know, a lot of things like that. That
would be, I feel like an interesting app
that might highlight some of the
nefarious ongoings of some of these
vessels and what they're up to.
And they probably wouldn't like that app
very much, but I think that would be
interesting for organizations such as
Oceana and even individuals like me just
to be able to like, oh, this is weird,
like I'm trying individual vessel.

(01:52:10):
of fish and watch. Increasingly, we can
we can map more vessels
still, still by no means
all of these vessels. And as there's
really cool research time
to look at that now, like
the behaviors of them. And, you know, one
of my colleagues,
Keiko Nomura looked at how
different fleets interact or potentially
avoid each other. You

(01:52:30):
know, there can be kind of
this, especially for tuna stocks, you
know, there can be a
collaboration once you find
the schools between different fleets.
Maybe they have the
same owners, we don't know.
And then others would fish in completely
different areas, like
almost like this avoidance. And
similarly, with with fishing in the high
seas and these different
systems that are out there,

(01:52:51):
you know, we're learning more and more
that the high seas isn't
just this, you know, blank
homogenous desert, but has these kind of
networks of systems and underwater
mountains and seeing
how these different vessels, you know,
time it so they all arrive at the same
time. Yeah, I think
this is a really exciting,

(01:53:11):
you know, area of research at the moment.
Yeah, absolutely. This is this has been
wonderful. My last question that I give
people when I interview, especially on
things like reports like these, my
audience is very
motivated to help, you know, they
want to help, sometimes they feel a

(01:53:32):
little bit out of touch in terms of how
they can help. This is
a big deal. This is a
huge, huge undertaking that that you and
your colleagues have have done. How can
individuals help when they listen to this
podcast, or probably like, man, this
sucks, like all this stuff is happening.
There's a lot of
problems, you know, there
are people who are working on it, but

(01:53:52):
it's like they feel a little helpless,
you know, and they
want it, they want to do
more. So from an individual standpoint,
how would you recommend people what what
actions people can take
to to help in this area?
Yeah, it's a great question. And, you
know, I asked myself a lot as well, even
just about, you know, what

(01:54:13):
can I do more than, you know,
sometimes publishing a report can feel
great, but what more can I do? And I
think if there's a campaign, you know,
especially if you're in a
country that, you know, is a flag of
convenience or has a huge fishing
industry, you know, trying to support
campaigns that are pushing for, for more
transparency or, you know, or better
regulation of these fisheries, whether

(01:54:34):
that's, you know, industry
led, you know, by these kind of
fishing corporations or small scale
fishers or different industry bodies, or
whether it's led by NGOs or, or, you
know, groups, I would say
try and support that they're often trying
to get people to add their names to
petitions and send emails and stuff like
that. And I think for me,

(01:54:56):
fundamentally, that's the biggest part
is, you know, these emails and petitions,
ultimately, as they're being sent to the
politicians, right,
is, you know, is in your
political power, it feels often,
increasingly, in fact, that we have very
little of it. But what little we do, you
know, we can put to, you know, to
candidates that maybe

(01:55:18):
think about these issues and particularly
environmental issues. And I think that's,
that's a really strong way to, to be able
to support these causes,
which hopefully that's, that's
encouraging. And it's just all right.
Well, vote and vote and write emails. But
well, I'll tell you, I mean, it makes a
difference. I mean, we have listenership

(01:55:39):
in over 150 different countries, you
know, it's not just the UK, it's not just
Canada, it's not the US, it's not just
Australia or India, Brazil or
Argentina, as we mentioned, it's all
these different countries. And if we have
people that are listening to this in a
variety of different countries, then
maybe if we all start talking to our
representatives on a regular basis and

(01:56:00):
get to know them and build relationships,
like it's not just a matter of just
writing to I feel like it's a matter of
like, really getting to know and having
those those representatives get to know
you. And what's important to you, it
could just be it may be environmental
might be for different aspects of what's
important to you, but really

(01:56:21):
understanding that relationship between
us and our government representatives and
getting to know them, whoever they are,
whatever side of the aisle they they're
on is to is a big is a big thing.
And probably a podcast episode in and of
itself, or series of them in and of
itself to get to know but you know, the
work that you and your colleagues are
doing, then I think is imperative, we

(01:56:42):
need this information. This information
is not found regularly, as you mentioned,
it's difficult to track down, even
finding out the length of certain boats
is difficult, which is like you would
think would be common information, the
first information that they would put in
and and sometimes it's just not. And so
we appreciate all the
work that you've done.
And I think that's important, not only

(01:57:02):
for this report, but in the past and
research into this type of of aspect of
fisheries. It's very important. And we
really appreciate you coming on and
sharing all this information with us so
that we can have more knowledge to live
for better ocean. So we appreciate your
work. And we'd love to have you back on
some time and talk about updates and
hopefully seeing some progress in some

(01:57:22):
changes that countries have made in the
way they they track
their fishing vessels.
Thank you very much for having me on
this. You know, I love talking about this
stuff. And so happy to find a fellow
person to talk and an audience who are
keen to listen. Absolutely. Wonderful.
Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
Cheers, Andre. Thank you, Dan, for

(01:57:43):
joining us on today's episode of the How
to Protect the Ocean podcast was great to
have you on. It was great to be able to
try and detangle some of the complexities
of global fishing vessels and just what
they can get away with. It's surprising
about what they can get away with.
And surprising that a lot of this has
gone on for a long time. What always
surprises me is when you try and track
down who owns a fishing vessel is just

(01:58:04):
like a web. It just goes all over. You
can be pinged all over around the world
looking at shell companies and then, you
know, depending on where they're from or
how it goes at one shell company to
another to another to
another all over the world.
And it's really interesting to me and
surprising how people can get away with
this for so long. Hopefully this report
helps detangle this and a system is in
place to track how vessels are owned and

(01:58:26):
who owns these vessels right to the
actual company that
makes the revenue from this.
And let's be honest, the fishing fleets
that are doing illegal things. It's the
crew that pays the price, but the
companies rarely do. And that's a shame.
And that should not happen again. So we
are going to continue to talk about this
in the future. But this episode really
highlights a lot of the issues that are

(01:58:46):
around and what can be done as
recommendations to help get
rid of this whole problem.
And so I want to thank Dan again for
joining us. We're going to put links to
Oceana's report in the show notes so you
can get access to that. If this is your
first time listening to the episode, I'd
love for you to subscribe. Follow however
you do, whether you're watching this on
YouTube or listening to this on your
favorite podcast app. But I want to thank

(01:59:07):
Dan for joining us and I want to thank
you for listening. I really do appreciate
all the support that you've given this
podcast. We're getting a lot of views.
We're getting a lot of downloads. We're
getting a lot of listens. We're getting a
lot of comments and engagement. It's
always great. And if you want to connect
with me, you can do so on
Instagram at howdepro.com.

(01:59:28):
And I'll try to answer as soon as I can.
I want to thank you so much for joining
me on today's episode of the how to
protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host
Andrew Lewin from the true North strong
and free. Have a great day. We'll talk to
you next time and happy conservation.