China has become more receptive to advice and pressure from international NGOs on illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing matters, according to Hang Zhou, a professor at Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based University of Laval.
Zhou, who has a postdoctoral background in fisheries research and has collaborated both with wildlife conservation groups and Chinese international diplomacy groups, told SeafoodSource that international NGOs in the fisheries sector “have [direct] channels of communication and interaction with Chinese line ministries and research institutes.”
“I think certain Chinese bureaucrats … know they face different challenges in regulating – from afar – the presence of different Chinese business actors, and they need inputs from actors who have a more grounded understanding and information on the impacts of that Chinese presence,” Zhou said.
In an article published in Marine Policy titled “Provincial variations and entrepreneurialism in the development of China’s distant-water fisheries,” Zhou outlined that the Chinese government has sought to rein in a group of provinces that have rapidly expanded their distant-water fleets, such as through issuing “zero-tolerance” policies to IUU fishing and capping the size of fleets, among other actions.
One such province according to Zhou’s research is the southeastern region of Fujian, which saw the scale of its fleet and distant-water catch rise by 78 percent and 50 percent, respectively, between 2012 and 2015, boosting the sector through ambitious subsidy packages and causing alarm among Beijing officials who worried that, without action, the rapid growth could lead to environmental outcry if allowed to continue unheeded.
Zhou largely credited exposure and pressure from international bodies and environmental NGOs that have called out Chinese fishing firms guilty of IUU infractions for spurring Beijing officials into action, but Zhou also said provinces still remain powerful in their ambitions for growth and can hold off efforts from Beijing officials to a point...
