Greenpeace: Thai fishing boats sail far to avoid regulations

[webfact]

Greenpeace: Thai fishing boats sail far to avoid regulations 
DAKE KANG, Associated Press

 

BANGKOK (AP) — The six men lay in red body bags, lined up on a concrete dock. The first died almost three weeks before his ship reached Thailand; the last almost made it alive but died the day before the ship docked. 

 

They were Thai and Cambodian fishermen who had succumbed to beriberi, a disease better known for striking sailors more than a century ago. But their deaths, says a Greenpeace report released Thursday, are part of an all-too modern scourge — Thai fishing fleets operating thousands of kilometers (miles) from home in unregulated waters to dodge government oversight over illegal fishing and onboard human rights abuses. 

 

Thailand has responded to problems in the industry by grounding its overseas fleet and ordering tracking equipment installed on the vessels.

 

The two ships carrying the dead had left Thailand in the first few months of 2015, according to an earlier Thai government report. They parked themselves off the coast of Madagascar, where they stayed for months. They transferred their catch to "reefers," refrigerated cargo ships, to avoid government regulators while still getting their fish to market.

 

Supply ships brought the fishermen fresh food once every couple of months. But they didn't come often enough.

 

An inspection found "there was no fresh food," Thai government investigators concluded after searching one ship, the Somboon 19. "The rest of the kitchen had eggs, vegetable oil, and white rice. No fresh vegetables or meat."

 

The ships ran out of fresh food weeks after each delivery, forcing the crew to subsist on fish and rice — a diet deficient in Vitamin B, the root cause of beriberi. Many began to fall ill. Subject to hours of backbreaking labor, some of the fishermen began finding it hard to breathe. Their legs swelled and their bodies went limp.

 

Though one ship returned to Thailand as soon as a fisherman died, the second one dumped the body in the freezer of the cargo hold and kept fishing, only returning when the navy called them home, said Cmdr. Piyanan Kaewmanee, head of a Thai navy department combating illegal fishing.

 

"It was gross," he told The Associated Press in a recent interview.

 

The arrival of the bodies on Thai shores in January 2016 kicked up a media frenzy. Newspapers reported the fishermen had died from vitamin deficiencies.

 

The story of how these vessels ended up so far from home in the first place starts with Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. For decades, Thai vessels fished in their waters, splitting profits in exchange for fishing licenses.

 

But following an AP report last year revealing that Thai fishing boats enslaved migrants from Myanmar, Cambodia and other neighboring countries, Indonesia shut off their waters to fishing vessels from foreign countries. Papua New Guinea followed suit soon after.

 

Deprived of their usual hunting ground, the boats set sail for seas far from the prying eyes of governments.

 

"Some of these problems we've seen in Indonesia ... are just being exported and happening somewhere else," says Mark Dia, an oceans activist and manager at Greenpeace. "Nobody really knows what happens on these vessels."

 

The Greenpeace report names some of the worst fishing boat operators, who they say send fish into the supply chain of major retailers of imitation crab and cat food. The AP has not independently verified those claims.

 

Greenpeace said satellite data it obtained tracked the ships as they moved toward the Saya de Malha Bank, an ecologically rich breeding ground for whales that Mauritius claims is part of its exclusive economic zone. However, it's effectively unregulated, officials and experts say.

 

"To send a patrol boat to inspect them at sea is hugely expensive," Cmdr. Piyanan said. "If it's not urgent, it's a rarity that we'd send a patrol boat."

 

After Thailand received a "yellow card" from the European Union in April 2015, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha created the Command Center for Combating Illegal Fishing.

 

In December 2015, the Thai navy sent a task force to inspect 74 Thai overseas fishing vessels to enforce new permit regulations. A navy report recorded dozens of vessels that had violated labor permits and overstayed their licenses, prompting them to recall their entire overseas fishing fleet back to Thailand.

 

After these abuses were uncovered, the Thai navy grounded the overseas fleet and prosecuted some of the operators. Seventy of the vessels are now docked in a port an hour away from Bangkok and are being outfitted with new GPS tracking equipment; they will be allowed to sail again next year.

 

Navy officials say they are exploring cheaper alternatives to regular in-person inspections, including hiring observers, installing on-board cameras and seeking assistance from countries such as Somalia, Djibouti, and Madagascar. New regulations stipulate that the vessels must return to Thailand every year, instead of roaming the high seas indefinitely.

 

Greenpeace says more needed to be done, particularly a industry ban on transshipments, the practice of using reefers as intermediaries.

 

Cmdr. Piyanan said regulation will always be challenging: "Anyone that is greedy enough, they can come up with things to avoid detection to avoid control from the government."

 

-- © Associated Press 2016-12-16

[noitom]

Thailand should receive a permanent red card, Costco , Walmart and all major sellers of Thai seafood should boycott all Thai seafoode products

[HiSoLowSoNoSo]

So much for their promises that the fishing fleet have cleaned up their act.

[swifty5x5]

It's a common practice to transfer catch to refeers. The canneries would rather unload a large ship full of fish than hundreds of small fishing boats.

[alant]

3 hours ago, noitom said:

Thailand should receive a permanent red card, Costco , Walmart and all major sellers of Thai seafood should boycott all Thai seafoode products

Regrettably the EU and the USA lack the desire (or is it balls?) to take any action.

[elgordo38]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

The Greenpeace report names some of the worst fishing boat operators, who they say send fish into the supply chain of major retailers of imitation crab and cat food. The AP has not independently verified those claims.

Attention Thai police force here it is on a silver platter lets get something done so these men did not die in vain. This type of slavery is just as bad as drugs and both offenses should be on the same punitive level. You have to put teeth in the law or it stays a toothless tiger subverted at will. 

[jcsmith]

3 hours ago, swifty5x5 said:

It's a common practice to transfer catch to refeers. The canneries would rather unload a large ship full of fish than hundreds of small fishing boats.

 

While that is true that these types of vessels are relatively common, that doesn't mean that companies will not exploit it as a way to dodge returning to shore for whatever reason. I worked in the Alaskan fishing industry for five years. A company I worked for did this one year when we fished in Russian waters. They wouldn't dock because they were worried about people quitting or calling home and finding out how abysmal their check was and then causing problems. We signed 60 day contracts and wound up at sea doing more than 3 months in that contract because they avoided returning to port. It's easy to see how a boat operating with slave labor would abuse this tactic. 

Edited December 16, 2016 by jcsmith

[bark]

6 hours ago, noitom said:

Thailand should receive a permanent red card, Costco , Walmart and all major sellers of Thai seafood should boycott all Thai seafoode products

I have said this before and I will say it again.

Thailand get put under the radar because all these reporters love to come to Thailand. Food, girls, parties, whatever.

China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, are these countries perfect, no labor abuse ? Russia, Korea ( North and South)?

Greenpeace is needs millions of dollars everyday to pay the expenses of all the do gooders they employee.

They write stories, which will try to get donations.

And speaking of Costco, and Walmart. They always score less then 50 % for the fish they buy. Then they give a few million dollars; and like magic; their scores go up. What a joke.

And I know there is abuse. We saw from the EU. Do we need to hear the same thing from Green peace ??

Who pays the UK, to come and inspect ( tax payers). Why do you think the UK does not just take the word of Greenpeace,

and save the Uk taxpayers a ton of money ??

 

[Baerboxer]

1 hour ago, bark said:

I have said this before and I will say it again.

Thailand get put under the radar because all these reporters love to come to Thailand. Food, girls, parties, whatever.

China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, are these countries perfect, no labor abuse ? Russia, Korea ( North and South)?

Greenpeace is needs millions of dollars everyday to pay the expenses of all the do gooders they employee.

They write stories, which will try to get donations.

And speaking of Costco, and Walmart. They always score less then 50 % for the fish they buy. Then they give a few million dollars; and like magic; their scores go up. What a joke.

And I know there is abuse. We saw from the EU. Do we need to hear the same thing from Green peace ??

Who pays the UK, to come and inspect ( tax payers). Why do you think the UK does not just take the word of Greenpeace,

and save the Uk taxpayers a ton of money ??

 

 

India and the countries of the Indian sub-continent are by far the biggest abusers of labor, exploiters of bonded slave like employees, children and by far the biggest traffickers.

But they're a rising power, a robust economy, allies of the US and EU, etc. No one wants to take too close a look there and upset their allies. Nor do the want to upset all those clothing companies who source there among others. And India makes it very very difficult for any monitors from anywhere. But no one does anything about it.

 

Most, if not all, large businesses and organizations have sections in the annual reports, sometimes required by regulation, devoted to corporate social responsibility, to sourcing with dignity, anti-slavery, anti-bribery. All fine words. They follow profit - period.

 

The US, EU and their ngo's target SEA, but ignore the more "friendly" nations.

[spidermike007]

It is very typical of Little P. to jawbone all day long about how he is cleaning things up, when in reality very little is being done to move Thailand forward. Slavery is allowed to continue. Human rights abuses continue. Trafficking continues. Alot of money is being made. Was the owner of this fishing boat arrested? Is the company being pursued for it's crimes? Does anyone care? Did Thailand really ground it's overseas fleet? I highly doubt it.

[bark]

2 hours ago, Baerboxer said:

 

India and the countries of the Indian sub-continent are by far the biggest abusers of labor, exploiters of bonded slave like employees, children and by far the biggest traffickers.

But they're a rising power, a robust economy, allies of the US and EU, etc. No one wants to take too close a look there and upset their allies. Nor do the want to upset all those clothing companies who source there among others. And India makes it very very difficult for any monitors from anywhere. But no one does anything about it.

 

Most, if not all, large businesses and organizations have sections in the annual reports, sometimes required by regulation, devoted to corporate social responsibility, to sourcing with dignity, anti-slavery, anti-bribery. All fine words. They follow profit - period.

 

The US, EU and their ngo's target SEA, but ignore the more "friendly" nations.

I forgot about India. Yes I agree with you.

I been to India for business. It is a sewer.  

No reporter wants to go there to write a story. No chance !