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This report presents the first study to use automatic identification system (AIS) data to examine the risks of unregulated fishing to ocean health. It also addresses the challenges faced by decision makers and regional management bodies to tackle unregulated fishing on the high seas of the Indian Ocean within the context of a failure to date to sustainably manage this global commons. The study discusses two institutional features that contribute to unregulated fishing on the high seas of the Indian Ocean: the gaps in spatial areas of competence and the gaps between the groups of species covered by regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs).

In an effort to tackle illegal fishing the Indonesia government introduced a series of regulations and policy changes that affect the fishing activities of domestic and foreign fishers. This study identified key behaviours by vessel operators that indicate violations of these regulations in particular relating to transshipment of purse seine and longline vessels. The study further highlights potentially unintended consequences as fishers respond to the new policies feeling their livelihoods may be under threat.

This paper summarises publicly available transshipment data to address the increasing number of high transshipment events occurring in the IOTC’s convention area. The report highlights the 94% increase in high seas transshipment between 2014 and 2018 the insufficient monitoring of transshipment activities and the current issues with and loopholes in Resolution 18-06 which reduce the effectiveness of the monitoring of transshipment activities.

This report discusses the rapid expansion of squid fishing in the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) Convention Area. The vessels appear to operate exclusively in the high seas, avoiding exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and therefore falling within an area beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ).
The area of operation, although physically within the area covered by the regional fisheries management organisation (RFMO), the IOTC, does not fall within its area of competence as only tuna and tuna like species are included within the IOTC mandate. The squid fishery presented in this report, based on analysis of data from January 2015 to April 2017 is therefore unregulated.
Squid are important prey for 12 predatory species including significant species such as bigeye tuna and swordfish. A clear understanding of sustainable yields is needed and management frameworks are required to sustainably manage this fishery.

This report recommends the need for action in North Sumatra to tackle the continued and sometimes deadly conflicts between traditional fishing communities and trawlers. The authors explain the large increase in the number of trawlers in the 1970s and 1980s entering the 3-mile zone reserved for traditional fishing activities. These incursions by trawlers into the traditional fishing zone and the lack of government action is resulting in contact with tragic consequences.

Liam Campling identifies a new tuna 'commodity frontier' that has a historical-geographical development with European fishing fleets (entirely in France and Spain) in the Eastern Tropical Atlantic and the Western Indian Ocean. In explaining how this commodity frontier came to be, Campling articulates two relations that function simultaneously at the point of production in industrial capture fisheries: vertical relations and horizontal relations. Capital has to adapt to a decline in relative ecological development, constantly holding in tension between the synthetic and the organic, coupled with increased competition between fishing firms. Together, these forces have created a commodity frontier with a clear history and provide a blueprint to analyze further capture fisheries.