- Must join forces to fight illegal fishing

Illegal fishing crosses borders and affects coastal societies and law-abiding businesses across the world. A serious crime in itself, illegal fishing is also associated with document fraud, tax fraud, economic crime, organized crime and human trafficking.

At this years Our Ocean conference in Oslo, Norway is dedicating 1.5 million USD to the “Blue Justice Initiative”.

- I believe that there is an urgent need for the world community to recognize that there is transnational organized crime in fisheries, and that we must address these problems as we do with other crime. We must encourage inter-agency cooperation where relevant authorities cooperate towards this shared goal – to combat and prevent transnational organized crime, says Norwegian Minister of Fisheries and Seafood, Mr. Harald T. Nesvik.

Blue Justice Initiative

In October 2018 in Copenhagen, nine ministers agreed on a declaration on transnational organized crime in the global fishing industry. The goal is a global response to crime in the fishing industries.

- We are now counting 19 countries that support the declaration and we encourage more countries to join the fight against crime in the fishing industries, says Norwegian Minister Mr. Harald T. Nesvik.

One of Norway’s commitments to the Our Ocean conference is to follow up on the declaration and will, in collaboration with the UN, host the Blue Justice conference next year.