Celtic League focused and campaigned over industrial fishing and cooperated with Ian Urbina at the New York Times when he did his series of ‘Outlaw Ocean’ exposés some years ago,
After reading about the activities of the five Dutch super trawlers off Donegal (again) I thought I would recap on where we are it with this global business and came across this article and one hour documentary about the vast fishing grounds off Namibia which are being exploited by Icelandic and Russian interests. This documentary tells it all and it’s well worth a watch:
https://www.ruv.is/kveikur/fishrot/…
It starts with the optimism of the country after it gained independence and the support that Iceland gave in building up its fishing industry and marketing and research facilities. Then the Icelandic organisers left and a different group of Icelandic interests moved in and cooperated with corrupt politicians to exploit a rich resource. While many Namibians subsist around the main ports billions of kroner in fish resources were/are exploited.
Now its gone full circle Icelandic TV reporters working with others such as Al Jazeera, Global Witness with much data from Wikileaks exposed the graft and bribery. Now both trawler skippers and politicians are being investigated and arrests and prosecutions are underway.
If you want to understand the complexity of the issue this documentary is well worth a watch while some dialogue is in Icelandic with subtitles most commentary is in English. Insiders speaking for the first time explain the value to these companies of getting freezer quota of such stock as lucrative horse mackerel 100s of tonnes of which can be processed on the super trawlers and then transhipped to waiting transports. It’s the global fishing mafia in action from Morocco to Namibia and who knows where else.
Related links (Namibia Broadcasting Corporation)
Super Trawler skippers in Court:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyepOuhoOG4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3WoApxmJMo
Former Minister and others arrested:
https://www.nbc.na/news/esau-gustavo-arrested.27035
Bernard Moffatt, Assistant General Secretary Celtic League (25 November 2019)
