IUU Fishing - Evidence Gathering

From the 1st January 2021, the UK will no longer be subject to the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and will be an independent coastal state once again. Previously, the UK had been covered by the EU's Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing regulations (1005/2008). Although these regulations are being retained in UK law, the UK has the freedom to set its own policies and regulations on IUU. Crucial to this is a better understanding of how IUU affects the UK to help influence our policy development.

Assessments have been made of the impact of IUU fishing at an EU and international level. However, the impact on UK industry has not been quantified. Now that the UK can take responsibility for managing its waters, this is an opportunity to further understand IUU issues at the UK level.

Project Aim

We want to understand more about the impacts of IUU fishing by identifying and compiling existing assessments of those impacts, particularly as they relate to the UK, and reviewing how those assessments have been made. This will allow us to establish the extent to which the impacts are understood and identify methods that could be used to strengthen the evidence base where necessary.