Yesterday, a large cluster of fishing boats was located just outside Maltese maritime territorial waters. The cluster included more than 20 fishing boats all fishing probably for bluefin tuna. At first I thought they were all Tunisian, but some of them were actually Turkish such as the Can Yusuf IMO: 1170278, featured above from Marine Traffic.
In the recent past, Tunisian vessels have been detected encroaching Maltese waters fishing for bluefin tuna and lampuki. The issue seems to have been raised by at European Union level by the Nationalist Party and the EU pledged to sanction Tunisian vessels which conducted illegal fishing.
However, the issue seems to have a much wider dimension. Malta’s maritime territorial waters, officially stretch out just to 12 nautical miles, but Malta’s exclusive Fishing Management Zone stretches out further afar to 25 nautical miles. The cluster of Tunisian and Turkish fishing boats yesterday was located just right at the border of Malta’s fishing management zone with some of these boats having potentially entered in the zone. The fishing boats look to be roughly located at around 40 – 70 KM outside Malta meaning they may have potentially also been travelling and fishing in our zone.
The boats are clearly not in Tunisian maritime waters which are further afar from this line. It should be concerning that fishing stocks outside and across our waters are potentially being depleted by neighbouring or even other countries.
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