Australia to Deploy Armed Ship to Protect Fisheries
Date: 18-Dec-03
Country: AUSTRALIA
Author: Belinda Goldsmith
Fisheries Minister Ian Macdonald said Wednesday Australia's customs service is leasing an ice-strengthened ship for permanent patrols around the country's islands near Antarctica.
The tough approach comes after Australian authorities spent 21 days in August chasing a Uruguayan-flagged boat suspected of poaching the highly prized Patagonian toothfish - also known as Chilean sea bass - through treacherous Antarctic seas.
"The introduction of a permanent, armed patrol capability significantly increases the risk of detection and prosecution for those that seek to fund, organize or otherwise support poaching activity," Macdonald said in a statement.
Macdonald and Customs Minister Chris Ellison said the ship would carry a deck-mounted .50 caliber machine gun, a customs boarding party armed with handguns, Australian fisheries officers and a team of mariners able to crew apprehended illegal vessels.
The ship would operate year-round in virtually all weather and would be the most heavily armed when added to the existing fleet of eight vessels that patrol Australia's huge coastline.
The new vessel will patrol mainly around Australia's Heard and McDonald islands, 2,200 nautical miles southwest of Australia, where the Viarsa was first spotted.
The Uruguayan vessel Viarsa was finally caught off South Africa when armed fisheries officers stormed the boat. The dramatic chase, through stormy 10 meter (33 ft) seas and dodging icebergs, cost Australia an estimated A$5 million ($3.7 million).
The crackdown follows lobbying by the local fishing industry.
An estimated A$300 million worth of fish was lost to poachers over a five-year period to 2001, according to government figures.
The pursuit of the Viarsa also highlighted the plight of the increasingly rare Patagonian toothfish, dubbed "white gold" by fishermen. The fish is a delicacy in Asia and the United States and could be commercially extinct by 2007.
The Viarsa was escorted back to Australia after its capture where five crew are awaiting trial.
Australia has moved to increase fines for crews caught illegally fishing on vessels larger than 25 meters to A$835,000 and to give authorities the powers to recover the costs of any pursuit and apprehension of illegal foreign fishing vessels.
