North Korean fishing activities decline in 2020, NGO claims

North Korean fishing activities decline in 2020, NGO claims

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Research by the nonprofit Global Fishing Watch found that the total number of days North Korean vessels fished in Russian waters dropped 95%, from 146,800 to 6,600. Fishing for fish in North Korea’s own territorial waters also ‘ undergoing a tremendous decline.

The ships are referred to as part of North Korea’s ‘dark fleet’ because they do not broadcast their location publicly or appear in public monitoring systems, often in violation of global maritime regulations. Dozens of these ships, poorly equipped to travel long distances, have washed up on Japanese shores in recent years, sometimes with dead sailors on board.

Global Fishing Watch used satellite imagery and other maritime monitoring technologies to track the number of squid vessels fishing during the May to November fishing season. Inline fishing is one of the easiest to spot from afar, as it is usually done at night with powerful lighting equipment.

Squid is popular in Northeast Asia, and the increasing demand in recent years has threatened the sustainability of the already dwindling squid stocks in the region, according to Global Fishing Watch. In North Korea, squid are fermented, pickled, fried, stirred or dried and served as a snack.

Jaeyoon Park, a senior data scientist at Global Fishing Watch, said the unprecedented decline appears to be due to the strict entry and exit controls, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un set up to launch Covid-19 to keep out of the country.

Experts believe Kim sealed North Korea’s borders last year and severed last ties with the outside world because he knows Pyongyang’s dilapidated healthcare infrastructure would be overwhelmed by a coronavirus outbreak.

North Korea says it has not contracted a single case of Covid-19, a claim that most experts dismiss as propaganda. But the country is apparently spared a major wave of infections, thanks in part to strict anti-epidemic measures, the control of the movement of people and the lock-up.

However, these preventive measures were expensive. Trade between Beijing and Pyongyang – an economic lifeline most experts believe North Korea should prevent its people from starving – fell by more than 80% in 2020, according to data from China’s customs agency published on Monday .
Nearly 10.1 million people are suffering from food insecurity in North Korea and are in urgent need of food aid, according to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in April 2020.
Pyongyang often struggles to adequately feed its people due to economic mismanagement, international sanctions and the country’s lack of arable land and modern agricultural equipment. But things are almost certainly getting worse now due to the tightened border restrictions and heavy rains this summer that are flooding agricultural land and destroying crops.
Although there seems to be enough food to go around, the supply is more volatile than ever since the famine of the 1990s, according to Chad O’Carroll, CEO of Korea Risk Group, which publishes North Korean publications NK Pro and NK News.

“We can say with certainty that there is a shortage of several important foods nationwide,” he said.

Russian border guards are detaining North Korean poachers in the Russian waters of the Sea of ​​Japan in this 2019 file.

Fishing far from home

North Korean fishermen often work illegally outside the country’s own waters due to overpopulation.

According to United Nations investigators, Pyongyang allegedly sold its territorial fishing rights to other countries, despite the fact that fishing in its waters or trading in North Korean fish violated international law.
The deal, which is estimated to be worth $ 300 million a year, was approved by the UN Security Council in 2017 as part of its effort to punish the Kim regime for its repeated ballistic missile tests that year.
In a groundbreaking study published by Global Fishing Watch in 2020, it was found that squid vessels with ties with China were operating in North Korean waters and displaced North Korea’s own fishing fleet, forcing many in fan boats to move further from the to sail home in a rougher, more dangerous sea.
Many did not survive the journey.

According to Global Fishing Watch’s Park, squid fishing in Russian and North Korean territorial waters dropped dramatically in 2020. During the peak season of September to November, Global Fishing Watch found that 50% fewer vessels of Chinese origin in North Korean waters work as it did. compared to the same time in previous years.

However, North Korean squid fishing boats did not benefit. There was no corresponding increase in North Korean squid catches in the country’s own territorial waters. It is likely that a large amount of North Korea’s squid stock ‘completely disappeared by 2020’, Park said.

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