Global scope and economics of illegal fishing

We present a conceptual model for the analysis of the costs and benefit aspects of the risk inherent in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) activity. We then develop and present a map of IUU incidences as reported in the Fisheries Centre's Sea Around Us project IUU global database. This map shows that IUU activities are quite widespread geographically. We next present an analysis of the cost and benefit aspects of risks of IUU fishing. A key result of the study is that for the cases analyzed as a group; the expected benefits from IUU fishing far exceed the expected cost of being apprehended. For an assumed 1 in 5 chance of being apprehended, our calculations show that reported fines for the vessels apprehended will have to be increased by 24 times for the expected cost to be at least as much as the expected benefits.