Africa: Fisheries under PSC watch

In a recent media query regarding the status of private security companies (PSCs) guarding ships against piracy off of the Somali coast, the deputy marine minister of the semiautonomous region of Puntland, Abdulkadir Muse Yusuf, said he welcomed PSCs into Somali waters. Yet by adding that PSCs could also help his country combat illegal fishing, Yusuf shed a sliver of light on a less well known aspect of maritime PSC work conducted in Africa: the privatized fisheries protection services.

Indeed, by mentioning that Puntland welcomed PSCs into Somali waters to combat illegal fishing, Yusuf was simply acknowledging that various Somali government administrations - from both the transitional national government as well as Puntland - had entered into agreements with no less than half a dozen private companies for these anti-poaching and related anti-piracy services over the last decade.

Other West African countries, including Sierra Leone and more recently Liberia, have also entered into contracts with PSCs to provide them with the ability to actively monitor, license, and even board and fine international fishing trawlers operating illegally in their territorial waters. Though the context of each of these privatized fisheries protection services - technically referred to as monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS) programs - have varied significantly, a number of broad factors help to explain why both governments and PSCs have been interested in pursuing these partnerships, as well as why they have proved so difficult to initiate and sustain.

Privatized fisheries protection: A growing market

Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), nations have been granted considerable exclusive rights to the marine resources within a 200-mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) along their coastlines. In many cases, however, the ability of a state to extend the rule of law throughout this massive jurisdiction has been limited by a weak or non-existent marine patrol capacity. Indeed, in each instance of a government hiring a PSC to run a MCS program, a state has been faced with the problem of illegal fishing fleets operating in its waters without having the indigenous naval resources to effectively combat this problem. Puntland, the Transitional National Government of Somalia (TNG), Sierra Leone and Liberia are prime examples.

For instance, aerial surveillance of illegal fishing in Sierra Leone in 2000 immediately prior to that country's first privatized MSC contract revealed a massive level of illegal fishing in inshore spawning grounds left untouched due to lack of government patrol assets. Aside from the environmental and economic damage to the artisanal fishing industry, Sierra Leonean officials estimated in 2001 that these poachers and other unlicensed trawlers stole between US$10 million and US$25 million dollars of fisheries resources every year. With a properly managed MCS program, however, these same officials estimated an annual US$14 million to US$24 million dollars a year from fishing licenses alone.

It is this source of untapped revenue that has led entrepreneurial PSCs to approach African governments with business proposals for privatized MCS programs. By offering these governments a privatized maritime patrol and an expanded source of government revenue in exchange for a share in the profits, a small market in privatized MCS fisheries programs has developed over the last decade.

The political economy of protection

Typically, these operations have required the PSC to propose that the MCS program be self-sustaining whereby the operating costs - as well as a degree of profit for both the government and the PSC itself - would be generated over the long term via revenue from licensing the fishing industry.

At the same time, the startup costs for the entire monitoring, control and surveillance program have often been footed by the PSCs themselves. Indeed, it is precisely this necessity of startup capital - and the typical reluctance of these governments to provide it - that have witnessed a number of agreements between PSCs and Somali administrations falter. Between 2005 and 2008, the Somali TNG has entered into agreements for MCS programs with the PSCs Top Cat, Al Habibi Marine Service, Northbridge Services Group and Secopex allegedly worth between US$50 million and $150 million dollars each. Yet without any financial backing, these numbers remained meaningless and the contracts went unfulfilled. 

Privatized MCS programs that have proven successful - at least in the short term - have required the PSC to provide the government client with the necessary equipment and as well as an immediate source of income to run the program. For the PSC, this has come from a percentage in the profits from the issuance of large fines levied against wealthy international fishing companies caught fishing illegally as well as the possible confiscation of valuable fish catches and even the fishing equipment and boat itself.

The value of these fines and confiscated catches can be impressive.  According to the Sierra Leone Fisheries Ministry, the PSC Southern Cross Security was able to arrest and fine 54 illegal fishing vessels between 2000 and 2002 with "considerable revenue created to the government through fines levied," it said in a statement to ISN Security Watch.

Indeed, the CEO of this private security firm told ISN Security Watch that in the first seven months of at sea, the private security firm levied US$450,000 dollars in fines against mostly Chinese and other illegal fishing trawlers operating without a license or fishing illegally in the spawning grounds.

Similar financial incentives motivated the government of Puntland to award its first such contract to the PSC Hart Security in 1999 to actively intervene, fine and/or license the international fleet of tuna boats and trawlers operating illegally in its waters. More recently in February of 2008, Liberian Minister of Agriculture Chris Toe cited the annual loss of at least US$12 million dollars per year from illegal and unlicensed fishing as the context within which they hired the PSC Marine Protection and Rescue Services (MPRS) to target and fine these illegal fishing vessels operating within their waters. According to a Ministry of Agriculture invoice seen by ISN Security Watch, the fishing trawler Seta 70 managed by the international firm Inter Burgo was arrested by the PSC MPRS and fined a total of US$327,000 dollars by the Liberian government.  

Catching and fining illegal fishing boats

PSCs have typically relied on small, fast rigid inflatable boats (RIBs) manned by PSC security personnel acting as fisheries protection officers to approach and board fishing trawlers. These private security personnel would also be accompanied by one or two government officials to oversee the boarding operation, enforce the law, and administer any potential fines. In the case of Hart Security's Puntland contract and the more recent MPRS operation in Liberia in 2008, these PSCs would deploy their RIBs via crane from a larger mothership that used radar and night vision equipment to locate vessels suspected of illegal fishing.

Once a fishing vessel was spotted, the mothership would hail it via open channel radio communications, inform the captain that they had been spotted by a government fisheries ship, and that they should prepare to be boarded by a fisheries inspection team. Though ostensibly dealing with fishermen rather than pirates, the degree of lawlessness characteristic of illegal fishing in African waters meant that these PSC MCS operations often involved their security personnel carrying automatic rifles during vessel boardings. Once on board, the public-private boarding team would ascertain whether the ship was licensed and then document the location of the ship in the client's territorial waters via a global positioning system. If caught fishing illegally, the size of its illegal catch would be recorded and the boarding party would either issue an on the spot fine or order the ship into port for further law enforcement.

MCS programs difficult to sustain

One key recurring problem with the MCS programs has been the lack of long-term planning and investment in government infrastructure - of both salaried personnel and necessary equipment - needed for a sustainable fisheries program. Without this effort, these privatized fisheries patrols can potentially get degraded into short-term bounty hunting operations focused almost exclusively on issuing high value fines against international fishing companies rather than on developing a comprehensive fisheries program.

Indeed, in the short term, the very success of these arrests or the mere threat of the PSC presence has lead to a drop in illegal fishing, and thus the removal of the short-term revenue needed to sustain the contract. The problem of crime displacement - where illegal fishing operations have simply moved their boats to unpatrolled waters further down the African coastline - has proven to be a significant problem for these private MCS programs. Claude Berube of the US Naval Academy's political science department told ISN Security Watch that because of this problem "legitimate PSCs need to determine if the potential revenue and profit generated from these contracts merit their investment in platforms and personnel."

Berube also said that maintaining legal accountability for these private MCS programs remained of paramount concern. In practice, as in other areas in the private security industry, there seems to be mixed results with this issue. Whereas some PSCs such as Hart Security actively sought legal advice and incorporated FAO fisheries guidelines into their MCS operations, less established PSCs adopted a more cavalier attitude toward legal concerns.

Discussing his unexecuted contract with the Somali TNG, Bob Kovacic of Northbridge Services told ISN Security Watch that "we were not too concerned about the legal issues. What were these pirates going to do? Sue us?" At the extreme, a few of these privatized fisheries programs may have themselves actually devolved into piracy or extortion rackets. SomCan Ltd, for example, a security firm based in the United Arab Emirates that was given a contract by the Somali TNG to fight illegal fishing between 2002 and 2005 reportedly had three of its own employees charged with piracy and imprisoned for 10 years by the government of Thailand.

Ultimately, it remains likely that PSCs will continue to offer MCS business proposals to governments in Africa (and perhaps elsewhere) that have not already implemented such a program themselves. However, if these public-private partnerships are to have any meaningful and lasting positive effects on sustainable management of fisheries resources, a greater and more concerted effort will need to take place.

Reputable PSCs with long terms business plans must be partnered with government fisheries ministries that have a clear long-term vision for developing the in-house infrastructure needed to transform these programs from short-term bounty hunting operations into mature and sustainable MCS programs. It remains to be seen if such cooperation is possible.