Fishing Vessel El Shaddai Bears the Brunt of Blurred Licensing Conditions

A grey area in licensing conditions appears to have been exposed in the Braxton Shipping El Shaddai case but nobody is willing to make a call. An investigation has taken place. The El Shaddai had all the necessary permits to fish both in the EEZ and in the High Seas. And the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment (DFFE) accepted it has erred and has corrected measures to ensure compliance with the relevant CCAMLR and other RFMO conservation and management measures. This doesn’t appear to be enough to satisfy some countries which appear to be holding the Flag State to ransom, and apparently some others believe the El Shaddai is guilty too.

In a previous article, the woes of Durban-based Braxton Shipping and its South African-flagged longliner, El Shaddai, reveal that the company has a genuine gripe. For it has not been allowed to fish for Patagonian Toothfish since 2016 thanks to a botch up in the licensing conditions paperwork which is not of its doing. It was also suspected of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing activity, except that the vessel could prove it had the necessary permits, the VMS was functional, and weekly and monthly reports were being sent to the Flag State’s Fisheries Department and CCAMLR.

A formal investigation eventually ensued which found insufficient evidence of the vessel fishing illegally. The DFFE has also recently approached CCAMLR to have it removed from the Contracting Party IUU Vessel List it has been on since 2021. SIOFA and the EU have also added it to their IUU Vessel Lists. Nobody appears to be listening. It is difficult to understand why and especially why the DFFE has backtracked on its position. More about this further in to this article…