PINA

By Alfred “Bubba” Cook

The connection between human welfare and ocean conservation is direct and unavoidable, a new op-ed argues, because lawlessness toward people often goes hand in hand with lawlessness toward the ocean.

Although there is an international legal framework governing crew welfare on fishing vessels at sea, these protections remain uneven, weakly enforced, or entirely absent for too many fishing crews, particularly migrant workers deployed on distant-water fleets.

“We cannot reasonably expect crews to comply with complex fisheries regulations including logbooks, bycatch mitigation, finning bans, spatial closures and other requirements when they are overworked, underpaid, isolated and afraid,” the author writes.

For decades, the global fisheries conservation community has rightly focused on the health of fish stocks, the integrity of management systems, and the long-term sustainability of ocean resources. But there is a fundamental truth we can no longer afford to sidestep: fisheries management that fails to protect the people working at sea is neither credible nor sustainable.

Crew welfare starts with international law. In theory, the framework already exists. International maritime law, anchored in instruments such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), establishes the responsibilities of states over vessels flying their flag. Complementing this are labour-specific agreements like the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) Work in Fishing Convention (C188), the Maritime Labour Convention, and safety instruments such as the Cape Town Agreement on fishing vessel safety.

In practice, however, these protections remain uneven, weakly enforced, or entirely absent for too many fishing crews, particularly migrant workers deployed on distant-water fleets. Ratification gaps persist. Oversight mechanisms are diffuse and fragmented, and accountability too often disappears once a vessel leaves port.

Under international law, flag states, those countries where a ship is registered and to whose jurisdiction it is subject, remain the primary authority responsible for ensuring the safety, welfare and labour conditions of crews on their vessels. This is not optional. It is a legal obligation that is explicit under UNCLOS Article 94, on duties of the flag state. Yet many flag states lack either the capacity or the political will to exercise effective control over labour conditions at sea. Others outsource critical responsibilities to private actors, such as crewing agencies, without adequate safeguards. The result is a regulatory vacuum in which abuse can flourish, hidden by distance, isolation, and unverified or unvalidated compliance consequence reporting.

This governance failure is not hypothetical. Documented cases of forced labour, debt bondage, excessive working hours, withheld wages, and physical abuse continue to surface across global fisheries. These are not outliers; rather, they are symptoms of a system that has prioritized production over protection.

Encouragingly, change is beginning to emerge in fisheries governance spaces traditionally focused only on fish. The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), one of the world’s most important Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs), adopted a binding conservation and management measure specifically addressing crew labour standards in 2024, which contains specific provisions prohibiting forced labour and child labour, mandating decent living conditions, timely wage payments, medical care access, incident reporting for serious injuries and deaths, cooperation in search and rescue, and protection against retaliation for grievances. This is a meaningful step forward. It reflects growing recognition that human welfare is not separate from fisheries management, but integral to it.

Still, adoption alone is not enough. Implementation, compliance and enforcement will determine whether such measures improve conditions on deck or remain aspirational language on paper.

Additionally, there are operational aspects of the fishing industry that contribute to ongoing labour abuse. One of the most persistent and underaddressed challenges lies upstream of the vessel itself: the role of crewing agencies. In many fisheries, crew are recruited through third-party labour brokers operating across borders with limited oversight. Contracts are opaque, fees are charged to workers, and accountability is diffuse. When abuses occur, responsibility, and blame, is passed among vessel owners, recruiters and flag states, while crews are left without remedy.

If governments are serious about protecting workers, oversight of crewing agencies must become a core part of fisheries governance. That means licensing, transparency, joint liability, and enforceable standards, not voluntary codes and after-the-fact audits. Most importantly, flag states must acknowledge that “the buck stops with them” and that they are ultimately responsible for any human or labour rights violations that occur under their flags.

Furthermore, high seas transshipment enables fishing vessels to remain at sea for extended periods, sometimes longer than two years, without entering ports where crew may access authorities, disembark safely, or have their working conditions inspected. This prolonged isolation facilitates forced labour, human trafficking and other abuses by preventing crew from exercising their rights to leave, seek help or report violations.

Current reporting requirements for at-sea transshipment make it impossible to verify the identity of anyone boarding or disembarking, as well as the time and location of such actions. Without the regulatory oversight and access to support services that port calls provide, crew aboard transshipment vessels operate in a virtually unmonitored environment where labour rights violations can occur with impunity. In fact, the ILO has identified poorly monitored at-sea transshipment as a key enabler of “forced labour and trafficking in fisheries,” as it allows vessels to function as closed systems beyond effective scrutiny.

Notably, while large seafood markets and NGOs have leveraged market pressure to address seafood sourced from illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and food safety, a similar mechanism does not exist with respect to labour abuses. Whether the carrot that is the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) market eco-certification or the stick that is the European Union (EU) IUU regulation and the U.S. Seafood Import Monitoring Programme SIMP), there is no effective market barrier to seafood that is a product of human misery.

Despite its limitations, the EU IUU regulation did mobilise improvements. Similarly, the MSC recently integrated some labour-related checks (reporting, prohibitions on egregious abuses, audits/self-assessments) within its certification process, but the requirements are narrow and fall short of comprehensive human rights and labour standards. A similar market-based approach to flag states’ responsibility over crewing conditions consistent with ILO C188 could be easily implemented.

Technology can also play a role, if deployed thoughtfully and ethically. Advances in electronic monitoring, connectivity and digital identity systems offer new opportunities to reduce isolation, improve oversight and amplify worker voice. The recent expansion of satellite-based Wi-Fi, for example, is not a luxury, but rather a lifeline. Access to communication enables crew to contact family, report grievances, manage finances and seek help when something goes wrong.

Recent pilot projects combining electronic monitoring with onboard connectivity have demonstrated that these tools can also support social responsibility. Cameras can document working conditions, accidents, and compliance with rest and safety requirements. Monitoring footage, when governed by clear privacy protections, can serve as impartial evidence in dispute resolution. Importantly, crew often view such systems as protective rather than punitive, provided they are paired with trusted grievance mechanisms and safeguards against misuse.

Other emerging tools, such as self-sovereign digital identity, biometrics for identity verification, and secure worker-voice platforms, could help address long-standing problems like document confiscation, contract substitution and lack of access to remedies. These technologies are not silver bullets. They cannot substitute for inspections, enforcement or strong laws. But they can help close some of the accountability gaps that have long plagued distant-water fisheries.

It’s also worth noting that these technologies and processes are ubiquitous requirements for foreign labour serving on land. People entering a country to work as seasonal or permanent workers within the country all go through an immigration process and are subject to legal requirements such as contracts and occupational safety and health, so why wouldn’t we expect the same for a vessel that is explicitly territory under a flag state? If we can maintain a “mass balance” for immigrants entering and leaving a country, why wouldn’t we apply it to vessels, with an additional proviso that if it does not occur the products from that vessel are barred entry to markets or subject to sanctions the same way the products of IUU are by the U.S SIMP and EU IUU framework?

None of this will matter, however, if the human dimension of fisheries remains siloed from conservation and management decisions. We cannot reasonably expect crews to comply with complex fisheries regulations including logbooks, bycatch mitigation, finning bans, spatial closures and other requirements when they are overworked, underpaid, isolated and afraid. A system that treats workers as disposable inputs should not be surprised when rules are ignored or evaded.

The connection between human welfare and ocean conservation is direct and unavoidable. Exploitation undermines compliance. Abuse erodes transparency. And lawlessness toward people often goes hand in hand with lawlessness toward the ocean and the resources we extract from it.

If we want fisheries that are legal, sustainable, accountable and resilient, we must build governance systems that value human dignity as much as biomass or economic targets. That means stronger flag state accountability, real oversight of labour recruiters, massive reform or prohibition of transshipment, meaningful RFMO action, and requirements for responsible use of technology to shine light where abuse has thrived in the dark.

Sustainable fisheries cannot be delivered on the backs of exploited workers. Until we fully accept that truth, and act on it, our claims of responsible ocean stewardship will remain fundamentally incomplete.

Alfred “Bubba” Cook is policy director for Sharks Pacific and has spent more than 22 years in fisheries conservation and management, supporting conservation at a national and regional level through policy improvements, market tools and technological innovation. He served a leading role in securing human rights at sea before the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) through championing and securing passage of a regulatory measure to ensure the safety and security of fisheries observers in 2016, which served as a catalyst for an additional regulatory measure addressing the welfare of fishing crew serving on fishing vessels in 2024.

Fiji now has the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemic. Public education campaigns could stop it spreading across the region.

By Connor Graham

Fiji recorded 1,583 new HIV cases in 2024, an incidence of about 158 per 100,000 people. For comparison, Australia, a nation with around 27 times the population of Fiji, had just 757 new cases in 2024 (2.9 per 100,000 people).

Even more concerning is the trajectory. Fiji’s new HIV cases have exploded, increasing by 1,219 percent between 2019–24, showing no signs of slowing down, and contrasting global trends of a steady decline since the mid-1990s.

This staggering data awards Fiji the unenviable title of having the fastest-growing HIV epidemic in the world, and yet the figures likely underestimate the extent of Fiji’s HIV crisis due to poor testing rates. Only a third of people living with HIV in Fiji know their status and only about a quarter receive treatment.

Mirroring Fiji’s HIV crisis is increasing illicit drug use, particularly methamphetamine taken intravenously. Needle sharing has accelerated HIV spread in Fiji with conservative estimates reporting half of all new HIV cases stem from using contaminated syringes. The shocking act of “bluetoothing” – a practice documented in Fiji where drug users inject someone else’s blood to share their high – is perhaps the most efficient HIV transmission method imaginable.

Fiji’s HIV crisis may rapidly escalate from domestic concern to regional threat. Fiji is a hub for education and labour migration in the Pacific. What starts as a Fijian crisis won’t respect borders and poses direct health security concerns to already strained health systems in other Pacific Island nations, as well as Australia and New Zealand whose seasonal worker programmes (PALM and RSE) could introduce new transmission networks.

Continued expansion of regional networks targeting transnational crime, such as enhanced intelligence sharing, is needed to match increases in trafficking volume and ingenuity.

Pacific Island nations must take steps to insulate themselves, and the region, from additional HIV outbreaks, learning from Fiji’s experience. Many nations, including French Polynesia, Tonga, Samoa, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands are already seeing the warning signs of an increasing drug presence. It is via traffickers using the Pacific Islands’ quiet and largely unpatrolled borders as waystations that hard drugs have leaked into Fiji.

For Australia and New Zealand whose domestic drug markets drive the trafficking that fuels Fiji’s crisis, both moral obligations and direct health security concerns underpin the need for action.

Recently, major seizures in the Pacific seemingly occur every few days, reflecting the volume of trafficking taking place in the region. The burst of seizures is also indicative of regional security cooperation, with Pacific Island defence forces working alongside partner countries, such as Australia, to disrupt supply lines. Continued expansion of regional networks targeting transnational crime, such as enhanced intelligence sharing, is needed to match increases in trafficking volume and ingenuity.

Fiji’s HIV crisis was compounded by an initially sluggish public health response. Warning signs of a burgeoning crisis were present early, with the alarm definitively raised by UNAIDS in 2022. Regrettably, Fiji did not launch a national response plan to combat the HIV outbreak until 2025, and by then the window for early intervention had closed.

A recently published rapid assessment of Fiji’s HIV crisis revealed that some individuals who contracted HIV via unsafe injecting practices were still unaware of how HIV is spread, and the risks associated with contaminated blood. Others viewed the disease as untreatable or inevitable. Fundamental gaps in public knowledge of HIV in Fiji are likely to resonate around the Pacific.

AIDS virus

A simple step Pacific Island nations could take to build resilience to HIV outbreaks is an education campaign targeting public knowledge of HIV risk factors. Importantly, messaging must not be negative, or fear based as has previously been the case in Fiji, but include details of risk factors, promote safe sex, encourage testing and discourage needle sharing and other unsafe practices.

A more complex but crucial step toward building resilience to drug-related HIV outbreaks in the Pacific is destigmatisation. Both drug users and people living with HIV in Fiji report feeling judged and shunned by their communities, emotions that drive riskier behaviours and make them less likely to seek treatment or access support services. The value of removing stigma-based barriers to accessing testing and treatment, and enabling safe drug use, has been observed globally.

Ensuring the availability of sterile needles and syringes for drug users was the highest priority recommendation to combat Fiji’s HIV crisis per the previously mentioned rapid assessment. The “Fiji National HIV Surge Strategy”, developed by the Fijian government and launched in 2025, also notes the value of needle exchange programmes and supervised injection sites. The Fijian government’s progressive approach to tackling the HIV crisis is commendable, and will contribute to the erosion of stigma, enabling access to testing, treatment and support services. However, the delay in such action undoubtedly contributed to the extent of the crisis; a mistake other Pacific Island nations must not repeat.

Though some argue enabling safe use is akin to promoting drug use, this approach decreases stigma and disease transmission. There is little evidence that enabling safe drug use has ever resulted in increased drug use, and drug-related harms are invariably reduced.

The Pacific Islands face a choice; act now on proven harm reduction measures, or risk watching Fiji’s HIV crisis replicate across the region.