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World’s largest maritime ships database joins fight against pirate fishing
09 December 2020Guy Sear
IHS Markit's extensive Sea-web database now highlights
vessels with ties to illegal, unreported and unregulated
fishing.
This advancement was facilitated through a collaboration
between IHS Markit and the non-profit organisations Oceana and
Trygg Mat Tracking (TMT).
Effective January, leading global business information provider
IHS Markit will add information
on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing to their
Sea-web Ships database and their recently launched Maritime Intelligence Risk
Suite. These platforms are subscribed to by over 27,000 users
including marine equipment and insurance companies; ship owners,
brokers, builders and managers; and port services and security, for
a multitude of purposes including assessing and minimizing risk
exposure. These businesses will now be able to easily check whether
queried vessels have been formally identified by government
authorities for their involvement in IUU fishing—an activity
that is devastatingly harmful to the marine environment and is
often linked to other maritime crimes.
The IUU fishing vessel data has been obtained through TMT's Combined IUU Fishing Vessel
List, a comprehensive online resource that Oceana advises
insurance companies and other businesses refer to when conducting
due diligence checks on fishing vessels, to avoid contracts that
support illicit activity. Providing an additional access point to
this data is an advancement that both organisations and IHS Markit
believe will raise further awareness of this issue among maritime
businesses.
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is an
important maritime issue that needs addressing for the future of
our oceans. We have long-standing relationships and co-operation
with both Oceana and Trygg Mat Tracking and are extremely pleased
to extend this further by highlighting vessels associated with IUU
in our databases used by insurance companies, ship owners, brokers
and port services around the world. We hope that by increasing the
visibility of IUU activities to our wider audience, it will allow
them to make more informed decision about the vessels and companies
that they deal with," said Guy Sear, Executive Director
Maritime & Trade at IHS Markit.
"Oceana applauds IHS Markit for integrating IUU fishing data
into their extensively used Sea-web platform. Companies with access
to this platform will now more easily be able to assess the risk of
their contracts being linked to and supporting IUU fishing, a
situation that may put them in breach of legal obligations.
Furthermore, these companies can play an active role in helping to
deter IUU fishing through withdrawing their services from higher
risk vessels." said Pascale Moehrle, Executive Director for
Oceana in Europe.
"We are very pleased to extend our cooperation with IHS
Markit and see the fishing vessels on the Combined IUU List
integrated into IHS databases, ensuring that all users of their
systems have access to this important information. TMT is
monitoring the global industrial fishing fleet and the legality of
their operations, and while the vessels on the Combined IUU List
are of course not the only bad actors, they represent the riskiest
of the high risk vessels in terms of their historic and current
operations, frequent identity changes, opaque ownership and chances
of re-offence" said Duncan Copeland, Executive Director for
TMT.
The Sea-web database includes more
than 30,500 fishing vessels that are registered with an
International Maritime Organisation (IMO) number. Even if not all
fishing vessels have IMO numbers, this number is free to obtain
also through IHS Markit, the sole authority with the responsibility
for assigning and validating these numbers. IHS Markit, Oceana and
TMT encourage fishing vessel owners to register their vessel with
an IMO number and increase not only the coverage of this database
but the level of transparency within the fishing sector.
Posted 09 December 2020 by Guy Sear, Vice President/Managing Director and Global Head of Risk and Compliance, Maritime, Trade & Supply Chain at S&P Global
