About 250 kilograms of sea cucumber and 15 shark fins have allegedly been seized from an Indonesian fishing vessel intercepted in Australian waters.
Key factors:
- Eight crew members had been on board the Alwi Jaya fishing vessel when it was intercepted in Australia’s northern waters
- A big catch of 250 kilograms of trepang was seized
- Since July 2022 there have been 85 unlawful fishing boats intercepted by Border Power
The boat and its eight crew members have since been towed to Darwin.
The Australian Fisheries Administration Authority’s (AFMA) Peter Venslovas stated the vessel was noticed by an aerial surveillance aircraft final week and then intercepted by HMAS Armidale off the north-west coast of Australia.
“They have been dropped at [Darwin] port and it is an exercise we wish to examine and take care of strongly, as a result of we take unlawful fishing very critically,” he stated.
Mr Venslovas stated the boat would be destroyed and the crew will quickly face courtroom.
Sea cucumbers, in any other case often known as trepang, are thought to be a delicacy in many Asian nations.
85 boats intercepted since July 2022
Incidents of unlawful fishing in Australian waters peaked within the mid-2000s, in line with AFMA.
“It peaked within the monetary 12 months of 2005-06 with 648 interceptions,” Mr Venslovas stated.
“Then from about 2008, and for a few decade, that quantity fell to a mean of 15 to 25 interceptions a 12 months.”
However he stated numbers increased during the COVID pandemic and there had been 85 interceptions up to now this monetary 12 months.
“Now we have a superb relationship with our counterparts in Indonesia and we go to these specific ports the place these operators come from to elucidate the place the boundaries are and what the ramifications are in the event that they get caught,” he stated.
“They run the chance of shedding their vessel and their livelihood, and so they should not be enterprise these forays within the first place.”
In 2021, Operation Jawline noticed Border Power patrol boats intercept 19 Indonesian fishing vessels carrying roughly 860 kilograms of trepang in a two-week interval.
