Fish Wars

In 2012, British and French scallop fishers clashed in a series of violent encounters, dubbed the “great scallop war” in the press. The conflict did not escalate beyond rammed boats and thrown rocks, but it heightened tensions between the two governments, and when Brexit went into effect in 2020, a majority of French fishers were banned from operating in British territorial waters. This year, after the United Kingdom banned bottom trawling to protect fragile marine habitats, the French government protested vehemently and threatened to respond with punitive trade measures. Clashes are happening in other parts of the world, too. In 2022, when a U.S. Coast Guard cutter approached to inspect a Chinese squid vessel near Ecuador—following established legal protocols—the Chinese ship used aggressive maneuvers to avoid being boarded. In the meantime, dozens of other vessels fled without being inspected.

In a world consumed with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East—and a potential conflict over Taiwan—these incidents may seem insignificant. But although they may fly under the radar, disputes over fisheries have the potential to turn into larger conflicts and to exacerbate existing ones, just as disputes over oil, water, and grain have done in the past. Fisheries are finite natural resources that provide sustenance to billions of people; seafood constitutes nearly one-fifth of global consumption of animal protein. Its products are among the world’s most highly traded food commodities. The fisheries sector employs hundreds of millions of people and fuels the economies of many developing countries and small island states. And the industry already faces growing pressure as overfishing, poor management, and climate change degrade fish stocks across the planet. Rising ocean temperatures alone are expected to push nearly one in four local fish populations to cross an international boundary in the coming decade, reshuffling access to this critical resource and incentivizing risky illegal fishing and labor abuse in the sector. It is not hard to imagine how, in this context, a fish-related fight could spiral.

In fact, skirmishes are already happening with alarming frequency. Fights over fish are not new: during the Cold War, for instance, countries that were otherwise aligned clashed frequently over fisheries. In 1979, Canada seized U.S. fishing boats in a dispute about albacore tuna, and the Cod Wars of the 1970s saw Iceland and the United Kingdom clash over fishing rights in the North Atlantic. But the frequency of confrontation over fishery resources has increased 20-fold since 1970, and the rapid growth of fishing fleets able to travel to distant waters has further raised the risk of serious clashes.

Still, it is possible to avoid escalating conflicts over access to this increasingly scarce resource. When they have sufficient data and resources, scientists know how to rebuild stocks and manage fisheries sustainably, and their ability to predict the effects of new environmental stressors on fish populations is rapidly improving. When it comes to funding this work and applying its findings to governance, most countries fall short. But with strong institutions, conservation programs, and better real-time information about what is happening in national waters, national and international fishery bodies can make fishing grounds zones of peace rather than sources of conflict. Now is the time to muster the political will to do just that—and to thereby prevent tragedy at sea.

CONSIDER THE FISH

U.S. policymakers and the American public are aware that fishing is a fraught industry. Recent reporting, including an October 2023 investigation in The New Yorker, has revealed widespread abuse of laborers aboard squid fishing vessels in the Pacific. Other reports have shown that the poor working conditions and other crimes that run rampant in the sector—from illegal fishing and piracy to the smuggling of wildlife, drugs, arms, and people—make the seas less secure by increasing the risk of armed robbery against fishers, militarizing conservation zones, and facilitating corruption. Since these issues have come to light, members of the U.S. Congress have held hearings, proposed changes to government procurement policies, and called on the Biden administration to strengthen existing regulations that prevent the import of seafood produced using forced labor and through illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, as well as applying sanctions against companies that use forced labor.

Laudable as such measures may be, however, they do not address the economic and environmental factors that feed interstate conflict over fisheries. Narrow, country-specific policies are necessary but are not sufficient to address problems that are regional or global in scale. The United States, with its capable bureaucracy and ability to enforce maritime law, has a strong record of implementing measures to promote sustainable fishing. But many other countries lack the resources for effective fisheries management, and nearly 40 percent of global stocks are overfished as a result.

Localized efforts have made progress in some cases, such as the cooperative management measures that eight Pacific Island nations have implemented under the Parties to the Nauru Agreement. But there is no global mechanism to settle disputes. The primary vehicle for multilateral governance of fisheries is the UN Fish Stocks Agreement, which established the legal tools and mechanisms now used by an overlapping set of regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs). But these bodies address only the issues that their founding members agreed to address, and not all fishery conflicts are under their purview. Conflict can occur when RFMO members do not comply with the organizations’ rules, when a fish stock is spread across more than one organization’s jurisdiction, or when rule-breaking fleets belong to a country that is not a member of the relevant RFMO. These regional organizations have settled disputes among their members. But existing governance mechanisms must be more flexible and proactive, taking steps to prevent the conflicts that could arise from climate-change-induced movement of fisheries.

Nearly 40 percent of global stocks are overfished.

In part, the problem is one of mindset. Governments have long treated fisheries either as tradable commodities, with a focus on maximizing yields, or as subjects for environmental conservation and resources to be maintained like a national park. Their potential to become sites of conflict—and the need to manage them in a way that preserves peace—has been overlooked by all but a handful of researchers. As a result, access to fisheries is often seen as a zero-sum game, while opportunities for diplomacy are overlooked. On some occasions, such as when Nigeria and São Tomé and Príncipe adopted a joint development agreement, in 2001, maritime negotiations led to additional cooperation on resource management. But these instances are rare. Where economic interests drive governments to maximize the yield of a single species, too, fishing practices are typically not designed to realize the full potential of fisheries to support human well-being.

It is not just fisheries whose geopolitical value is underappreciated. More than 75 percent of the earth’s oceans remain unexplored, despite the role that these waters play in food supply, economic development, energy sustainability, public health, climate change, and security. When asked by researchers at the College of William and Mary to rank the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals, leaders from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors listed number 14, “life below water,” as the least important. Ocean issues, including fisheries, protected areas, and marine science, have received less than one percent of global philanthropic funding since 2009, and government investments in ocean science have been declining for decades. Most government funds come in the form of conservation projects worked into development budgets—which themselves represent a minuscule fraction of what governments spend annually on defense.

Even though the resources available for ocean- and fisheries-related work have been limited, they have been enough for researchers to demonstrate that governments need to pay more attention. The circumstances in which fisheries conflict is more likely to occur are well established: unequal or contested access to fishing grounds; the presence of foreign fishing vessels, whether they are fishing legally or illegally, in domestic waters; low government capacity to enforce maritime law; and real or perceived declines in sizes of fish stocks. Recent analysis by World Wildlife Fund highlights 20 potential conflict hotspots across the world. Some, such as the South China Sea, the Horn of Africa, and the Gulf of Guinea, come as no surprise, given the ongoing clashes between military vessels and fishing boats, and between foreign and domestic fishing boats, in those regions. Others, including the Arctic, the Eastern Mediterranean, and Melanesia, are likely to heat up if fish stocks migrate in expected directions in response to climate change. Armed with this knowledge, policymakers can turn their focus to conflict prevention.

GOOD GOVERNANCE

International momentum is building around expanding maritime regulations. Government and civil society delegations at COP28, the UN’s most recent climate summit, recognized the ocean’s critical contribution to climate mitigation and adaptation. Since 2016, when the UN’s Port State Measures Agreement entered into force, 78 signatories have agreed to fight illegal fishing with inspections and other security and compliance measures for vessels entering their ports. Last year, the UN also adopted the agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (also known as the High Seas Treaty), a historic step for conservation efforts in international waters. The World Trade Organization, too, has begun to address government-sponsored fisheries subsidies. The first part of a multilateral agreement is in place, but more governments need to ratify it before it enters into force. Next, WTO negotiators need to expedite the final text of a second, more powerful agreement to end subsidies that that lead to overfishing.

The challenge now is to build on progress toward ocean governance with policies that specifically mitigate the risk of conflict over fisheries. Governments should start by devoting more resources to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing; adopting practices that build resilience to climate change; and expanding the role of civil society and indigenous communities in fishery management. In the United States, there are already mechanisms in place and tools available to crack down on illegal fishing and boost maritime security, but the agencies involved need adequate funding. The U.S. Maritime SAFE Interagency Working Group on Illegal, Unregulated, and Unreported Fishing, established in 2020 under the Maritime Security and Fisheries Enforcement Act, was tasked with coordinating the U.S. government’s approach to ending illegal fishing. But the group still lacks sufficient resources to fulfill the objectives outlined in its ambitious five-year strategy.

The U.S. government should make the security of fisheries an explicit part of the mandates of the agencies—including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy, the State Department, and the U.S. Agency for International Development—that protect U.S. and international waters and engage with foreign counterparts to strengthen fishery management. In a positive step, Representative Garret Graves, Republican from Louisiana, and Representative Jared Huffman, Democrat from California, successfully attached an amendment to the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act that adds illegal fishing to the portfolio of the Department of Defense’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency. But more can be done. Preventing fish wars in the eastern Pacific in particular is in the United States’ national security interest, and U.S. military services can help deter conflicts by conducting more joint exercises and training with regional partners in areas where illegal fishing takes place.

Ocean health, human health, and peace and security can all hinge on fisheries.

The United States should also help foreign governments monitor the movement and activities of ocean vessels, train and support judges and prosecutors to ensure existing maritime rules are enforced, and raise the penalties for illegal fishing. U.S. and foreign enforcement agencies should work together to disrupt other organized criminal activities, including the smuggling of arms, drugs, and wildlife by fishing vessels, to lower the overall risk of conflict at sea.

Stronger global governance is necessary, too. The existing network of regional fishery management organizations is consensus-based and relies on members’ voluntary commitments. So far, these organizations have had varying success in reaching multilateral agreements on fish catch allocation and other fishery management measures that take the effects of climate change into account. But they do bring to the table a diverse set of actors, from government representatives of small-scale fisheries in coastal nations to those of the world’s distant-water fishing fleets, including policymakers from China and the EU. By scheduling supplemental meetings when a dispute emerges—keeping scientific or policy meetings free of such issues—these platforms can foster constructive dialogue to address potential conflicts before they escalate.

Finally, small-scale and artisanal fisheries need data-driven, climate-responsive management. In many of these fisheries today, regulations apply to one species at a time, without accounting for environmental change or interactions with other species; scientists lack sufficient data to predict the potential effects of warming waters; or the fishers, managers, and policymakers cannot agree on new catch quotas. Ultimately, fishers need to reduce the number of fish they kill each year if fisheries are to remain viable sources of sustenance. There are many tools available to make this happen, and they can be adapted to suit each fishery. Regulators can allow fewer boats in the fishery; with sufficient funds or private sector investment, fishers can adopt practices that reduce spoilage and waste; governments can invest in scientific research to improve modeling of fishery ecosystems; and policymakers can eliminate harmful fuel subsidies and address labor abuse in the fishing sector, thus making the price of seafood reflect the true cost of catching fish. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the good news is that there are many possible paths forward.

Ocean health, human health, and peace and security can all hinge on fisheries, and it is time that policymakers value these assets for what they are worth. Fish stocks are an increasingly scarce and unpredictable resource, and the resulting disputes over fisheries could escalate and feed into regional or even global conflicts. The violence that ensues would not only take human lives. By disrupting a critical industry and releasing pollutants into the ocean, war at sea would also destroy habitats, degrade ecosystems, imperil food security, cost jobs, weaken economies, and set back climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. The total price of waging fish wars dwarfs the investment in natural resource protection and global governance that states would need to make to keep conflict from happening in the first place. The scientific and conservation communities have reached clear conclusions about how to manage this challenge. The onus is now on policymakers to take preventive action while they still have the chance.