Wh Sea Shepherd is necesssary

[Thanas]

Huge feature of how they chased an illegal fishing vessel for over 100 days, well worth a read but too large to summarize here.

[salm]

Now, if only people cared about illegal fishing as much as about this silly lion...

[Thanas]

Please don't let this turn into a tangent....

[madd0ct0r]

Glad you posted it, hard to do off the phone.

Fantastic work and I hope they keep it up. Pirate fishers have wrecked the livelihoods of so many developing coasts

[Alyrium Denryle]

You know, strictly speaking, the US is not a signatory of the Paris Declaration of 1856, and only generally follows it as a matter of policy. We could revive...certain old naval practices at any time.




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[Thanas]

Well it probably has become universal law anyway due to common usage.

[Pinjar]

Chillean Sea Bass a.k.a. Toothfish. Proof that a rose by any other name would, actually, not smell as sweet.


In this case they just hounded the fishing vessel. That is not always the case and however good the result vigilantism should be discouraged. States should reserve the use of force to themselves, not subcontract it to private companies. It does not work on land and it would have even less supervision at sea. If states are unwilling to act then the correct course of action is to campaign to change the law, not to take it into your own hands.

[salm]

Organisations such as Greenpeace have been campaigning for decades. I´m not expert on this but it doesn´t seem to work. Nobody seems to care.
It´s doubtful that even boycotting fish in the supermarket is very useful because fleets such as the European fleet are heavily subsidized by the EU. If they can´t sell their fish to humans they just turn it into cat food.
The way I understand it we are actually subsidizing piracy.

[mr friendly guy]

Thanas. You have come around to my way of thinking in support of Sea Shepherd.

I will of course look at this when I have more time, but I just had to get that out.

[Thanas]

Thanas. You have come around to my way of thinking in support of Sea Shepherd.

My opinion on them has always been the same - vigilantes but the blatant violators deserve far worse than what Sea Shepherd does.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Chillean Sea Bass a.k.a. Toothfish. Proof that a rose by any other name would, actually, not smell as sweet.


In this case they just hounded the fishing vessel. That is not always the case and however good the result vigilantism should be discouraged. States should reserve the use of force to themselves, not subcontract it to private companies. It does not work on land and it would have even less supervision at sea. If states are unwilling to act then the correct course of action is to campaign to change the law, not to take it into your own hands.

The laws are already in place. They get violated and ignored with complete impunity. That is what poaching is, by definition. Someone hunting or fishing in violation of these things called laws. Either they violate a nation's EEZ, fish in marine sanctuaries, use illegal nets or other methods, catch above quota etc etc etc.

States cannot enforce these laws. They dont have the manpower, the ships to cover the vast areas under consideration, and the authority is dodgy at best. The USN cannot legally arrest a fishing vessel registered in Brazil in international waters for poaching, as I understand the matter (Thanas, if I am wrong, do correct).

Even if they could enforce the law, many states (I am looking at you Italy, China, Japan) wont. Some sponsor it (Hi China and Japan).

The only option to get anything done at all is to turn a blind eye to vigilantism and either deputize the vigilantes with letters of marque (I am perfectly happy shooting poachers on land, I will happily support the use of deck guns at sea), or hope they cooperate with INTERPOL, as Sea Shepherd seems to have taken a shine to lately.

[Highlord Laan]

Thanas. You have come around to my way of thinking in support of Sea Shepherd.

My opinion on them has always been the same - vigilantes but the blatant violators deserve far worse than what Sea Shepherd does.

So it's fine to bypass the law so long as you disagree with the law's implementation and feel that "they deserve it."

Okay.

[Thanas]

So it's fine to bypass the law so long as you disagree with the law's implementation and feel that "they deserve it."

Okay.

Hey, what a nice strawman. I can do one as well. I assume you are fine with breaking the law as you see fit, right? After all, that is what the fishers are doing.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Thanas. You have come around to my way of thinking in support of Sea Shepherd.

My opinion on them has always been the same - vigilantes but the blatant violators deserve far worse than what Sea Shepherd does.

So it's fine to bypass the law so long as you disagree with the law's implementation and feel that "they deserve it."

Okay.

The ocean is very similar to the Wild West, and always has been. The laws exist, but enforcement is non-existent because the resources are not and cannot feasibly be there for legitimate authorities to do it effectively. That leaves it up to non-state actors.

No one is bypassing the law, because there is no effective means by which the law can be enforced. There is simply nothing to bypass. In this instance, Sea Shepherd was in constant contact with INTERPOL. Did INTERPOL send out a armed cutter, board the Thunder etc? No. Because they couldn't. They dont have authority to make arrests.