Mass Media Reporting and Illicit Harvesting of Russian Crab: Implications for Sustainable Fishery

Abstract

Existing methods of combating the shadow economy do not always give reliable results. This is particularly true for the illegal use of renewable natural resources. In some parts of the Northwest Pacific basin, illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing has become an issue of growing concern for the sustainability of resource management, ecology, and the social environment. Many factors combine to produce these harmful phenomena. The complex legal rights for shared natural marine resources, the weak capacity of state institutions, and the lack of international cooperation between exporters and importers are all relevant. These factors can be eliminated by supplementing the “traditional” analysis of the shadow economy with new data mined from the media. For the crab harvesting regions of Russia, long-lasting benefits can be achieved through improvements in governance, accountability, and public awareness, or more specifically, through extensive mass media coverage of relevant topics. We argue that in the Russian Pacific, levels of illegal crab harvesting and smuggling correlates closely to the frequency of media references. The results suggest possible applications of mass media analysis: developing additional metrics for the dynamics of shadow economies; and the formulation of effective policy recommendations for sustainable fishing.

Crab Harvesting, Sustainability Issues, and International Trade: Insights from Russia

“…This article utilizes data from 1990 to 2022 concerning the TAC for crabs in Russia. Information for the years 1990 to 1999 was taken from Russian media sources [6]. Data for the period from 2000 to 2013 originate from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report [4].…”

“…The largest excess of total imports over the TAC (84.5 thousand tons) was recorded in 2005, when the total import (139.4 thousand tons) overshot the TAC (56.9 thousand tons) by a factor of 2.4. Evidently, this was the time when the magnitude of shadow activities in the harvesting and trade of Russian crabs was at its peak [6].…”

“…In particular, the gaps in the indicators of customs statistics on Russian exports and Japanese imports of crab and shrimp for 1994-2002 amounted to almost 600 thousand tons and USD 52.5 billion [6]. As control was restored and the responsibility of crab harvesters increased, the gaps in Russian and Japanese data gradually decreased from 30 to 188 times in the 1990s to 2000s to 10 to 20 times in the 2010s and 3 to 4 times in 2015-2018.…”

“…Since the early 1990s, IUU shipments of crab to Japan and other countries of Northeast Asia were carried out by Russian or foreign ships, often built or refurbished at docks on both sides of the Pacific. The construction and repair were financed by attracting funds from international financial markets, the ships were supplied in cheap foreign ports (the largest service base originated in the Korean city of Busan), and the proceeds were transferred to the accounts of foreign banks and invested in real estate in a number of countries where life was comfortable [6]. Moreover, violations of the law were noted at each stage of this process: fishing and export rules in Russia, foreign exchange settlements and transportation of seafood in Japan, customs clearance in Korea, tax laws in the US, and banking procedures in Cyprus, among others.…”

“…Significant measures adopted by Russia to combat IUU harvesting of crab are outlined in Table 1. Signing of the PSMA 5 (ratification in 2020 6 ) 2010 Establishment of a Fisheries Improvement Project (FIP) between the American non-profit Sustainable Fisheries Partnership (SFP) and the largest crab harvesting association in Russia, the Far East Crab Catchers Association (CCA) 7 2011 Creation of a national plan to combat IUU fishing 8 2013 Initiation of the certification process for the CCA's crab harvesting according to Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standards 9 2016…”