The Thai Sting: A Fishing Raid in the South China Sea

After night fell on April 10, 2018 an unremarkable vessel quietly slipped its moorings in the Thai port of Samui and set to sea. The fishing resupply vessel was sailing out into the Gulf of Thailand, the southwestern-most corner of the South China Sea. On board, the crew was in good spirits. They had received coordinates from their dispatch for the best catching, 15 nautical miles from the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) boundary shared between Thailand and Vietnam. During the 28-hour journey to their target, the crew on board the Poseidon went through their equipment, checking their hardware, and watching the horizon.

The Poseidon was a fishing cargo ship, but the crew wasn’t interested in catching fish; the Poseidon was at sea to catch fishermen. As the ship slowly made its way across the gulf, the Thai Royal Police and the Thai Department of Fisheries officers on board were going over their final preparations for their mission.

The Poseidon’s mission is part of a broader effort by Thai authorities to staunch the bleeding of its fish stock. Decades of overfishing and exploitation of the seas have seen a significant decline in the fish population in the two major oceanic bodies abutting the Southeast Asian nation: the Andaman Sea in the Indian Ocean to the west and the Gulf of Thailand in the east. In 2015 a major report published by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) entitled “Thailand’s Seafood Slaves” backed up by data from the Thai Department of Fisheries and the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce found the seafood industry employed more than 800,000 people and generated $6 billion of exports for the country.

According to data from Thailand's Marine Fisheries Research and Development Division, cited in another 2015 report also by the EJF entitled “Pirates and Slaves,” the catch per unit effort (CPUE) measurements of Thailand’s fishing stock had dropped by 86 percent from the 1960s to 2012. CPUE measures fish stock by taking the total number of fish caught and dividing it by the amount of effort (fishing time and power) used for harvesting a catch. Thai government statistics suggest the drop may be approaching 90 percent today.

On shore, Thai authorities have taken steps to reduce the exploitation of migrant workers aboard fishing vessels by placing strict limits on the size of the fleets, the duration allowed at sea, and reports when leaving or entering ports, including a headcount and identification check. While the symptoms are being treated, the disease, a regional tragedy of the commons, continues. Why? Fish do not recognize maritime EEZ boundaries, and neither do poachers.

EJF staff, working closely with Thai authorities, estimate that in the Gulf of Thailand nearly 90 percent of poachers are small fishing boats from Thailand’s neighbors to the east. Approximately 10 percent are Cambodian boats, while 80 percent originate from southern Vietnam. Cambodia received a red card from the European Union in 2014 for failing to comply with EU standards on ethical fishing, including sustainability and regulations. Vietnam received a yellow card in 2017, a warning that if it did not take steps to address the crisis developing in its waters and industry, its fisheries would face a ban on imports to the EU as well.