The North Korean squid fishery has declined sharply in 2020, NGO claims

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Research by the nonprofit Global Fishing Watch found that the number of days North Korean ships spent on squid in Russian waters dropped by 95%, from 146,800 to 6,600. Squid fishing in North Korea’s own territorial waters also suffered greatly.

The ships are listed as part of North Korea’s “dark fleet” because they do not broadcast their location publicly or appear in public monitoring systems, often in violation of global maritime regulations. Dozens of these ships, ill-equipped to travel long distances, have washed up on Japanese shores in recent years, sometimes with dead sailors on board.

Global Fishing Watch used satellite imagery and other maritime monitoring technologies to track the number of squid fishing vessels during the fishing season from May to November. Squid fishing is one of the easiest activities to track from afar as it is usually done at night with powerful lighting equipment.

According to Global Fishing Watch, squid is popular in Northeast Asia, and rising demand in recent years has threatened the sustainability of the region’s already dwindling squid stocks. In North Korea, squid is fermented, pickled, barbecued, stir-fried or dried and served as a snack.

Jaeyoon Park, a senior data scientist at Global Fishing Watch, said the unprecedented decline appears to be due to strict entry and exit controls North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has put in place to keep Covid-19 out of the country.

Experts believe Kim sealed North Korea’s borders last year, cutting the last of his sparse ties to the outside world, knowing Pyongyang’s dilapidated healthcare infrastructure would be overwhelmed by a coronavirus outbreak.

North Korea says it has not contracted a single case of Covid-19, a claim most experts dismiss as propaganda. But the country has seemingly been spared a great wave of infections, thanks in part to strict anti-epidemic measures, traffic controls and border closures.

However, these preventive measures have proved costly. Trade between Beijing and Pyongyang – an economic lifeline that most experts think North Korea should keep its people from going hungry – is down more than 80% by 2020, according to data from Chinese customs released Monday.
Nearly 10.1 million people suffer from food insecurity in North Korea and are “in urgent need of food aid,” according to an April 2020 report from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Pyongyang often struggles to adequately feed its people due to economic mismanagement, international sanctions, and the country’s lack of arable land and modern farming equipment. But things are almost certainly worse now because of tightened border restrictions and heavy rains this summer that flooded farmland and destroyed crops.
While there appears to be plenty of food, the supply is under more pressure than ever since the famine of the 1990s, according to Chad O’Carroll, the CEO of Korea Risk Group, who publishes North Korean publications NK Pro and NK News.

“We can safely say that there are national shortages of several important foods,” he said.

In this 2019 file photo, Russian border guards are holding North Korean poachers in Russian waters of the Sea of ​​Japan.

Fishing far from home

North Korean fishermen often operate illegally outside the country’s own waters due to overcrowding.

According to United Nations researchers, Pyongyang would have sold its territorial fishing rights to other countries, despite the fact that fishing in its waters or trading North Korean fish is in violation of international law.
The trade, which was estimated to be worth $ 300 million a year, was sanctioned by the UN Security Council in 2017 as part of its attempt to punish the Kim regime for its repeated ballistic missile tests that year.
A groundbreaking study published by Global Fishing Watch in 2020 found that squid fishing vessels with ties to China were operating in North Korean waters, displacing North Korea’s own fishing fleet, forcing many in rickety boats to travel further from home to rougher, more dangerous to sail the seas.
Many did not survive the journey.

Global Fishing Watch’s Park said squid fisheries in both Russian and North Korean territorial waters have declined dramatically in 2020. During the peak of the season from September to November, Global Fishing Watch found that 50% fewer vessels of Chinese origin were operating in North Korean waters than it did about the same time in previous years.

However, the North Korean squid fishing boats did not use them. There was no corresponding increase in North Korean squid fisheries in the country’s own territorial waters, so it is likely that much of North Korea’s squid stock will “have disappeared completely by 2020,” Park said.

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