Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing threatens resource sustainability and equity. A major challenge with such activity is that most fishing vessels do not broadcast their positions and are “dark” in public monitoring systems. Combining four satellite technologies, we identify widespread illegal fishing by dark fleets in the waters between the Koreas, Japan, and Russia. We find >900 vessels of Chinese origin in 2017 and >700 in 2018 fished illegally in North Korean waters, catching an estimated amount of Todarodes pacificus approximating that of Japan and South Korea combined (>164,000 metric tons worth >$440 million). We further find ~3000 small-scale North Korean vessels fished, mostly illegally, in Russian waters. These results can inform independent oversight of transboundary fisheries and foreshadow a new era in satellite monitoring of fisheries.

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Kim (2012). TURFs and clubs: empirical evidence of the effect of self-governance on protability in South Korea's inshore (maul) sheries. Environment and Development Economics, 17, pp 41-65 ABSTRACT. Self-governance of natural resources has started to gain increasing attention as an alternative to command-and-control and market-based tools. However, a fundamental question remains: is self-governance economically beneficial, allowing it to serve as an alternative management tool? This paper uses a unique set of survey data from a territorial-user-right-based South Korean inshore (maul) fishery and applies an empirical strategy to provide some of the first quantitative evidence that self-governance benefits maul fishermen. We find that members of the self-governance group perceive the management system as having had a positive impact on four out of the eight criteria we Emi Uchida and Hirotsugu Uchida share senior authorship. The authors would like to thank the participants of NAAFE 2009 (Newport, RI) for their useful comments. Hiroki Wakamatsu, Seth Walker and Jasmine Hwang provided excellent research assistance. This project was funded by the Korea-America Joint Marine Policy Research Center and the Rhode Island Agricultural Extension Service (AES# 5219).42 Emi Uchida et al.tested: stock recovery, curtailed fishing effort, reduced disputes among fishermen and declining incidents of illegal fishing. Considering that these groups have been in existence on average for less than seven years, these results indicate that the management scheme has made good progress overall.

The purpose of this study is to suggest improvement directions and strategies for the minimization of ex-post damage and prevention of the generation of derelict fishing gear which lead to decreased fisheries resources and deteriorated marine ecosystem through ghost fishing and damaging spawning and growth grounds. Current problems related to derelict fishing gear in Korea are lack of reliable data on the generation amount of derelict fishing gear, absence of life-cycle monitoring and management system, insufficient supports for derelict fishing gear collection programs and R&D investment in environmentally friendly fishing gear, etc. Thus, this study suggests three basic improvement directions to prevent the generation and minimize the damage of derelict fishing gear. Such improvement directions contain more detailed strategies such as establishment of fishing gear management law and life-cycle management system, strengthening entry regulations on fisheries causing serious ghost fishing problems, increased supports for R&D investment and dissemination of bio-degradable fishing nets, and promotion of voluntary agreements among competing fishermen's groups.

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