Authors: Amna Hashmi and Javaria Shaikh*
For centuries, the oceans were treated as commons that can never be exhausted. From early imperial fishing fleets up to the Cold War industrial trawlers, the sea was presented as an area where nothing could be owned or controlled with any consequence. This assumption of unlimited abundance was what shaped maritime law and global trade, as well as coastal economies, the same way. But nowadays that historical error has come back to haunt us. Illegal fishing that was previously regarded as a regulatory inconvenience has become a silent climate change catalyst in addition to a neglected cause of human migration.
The origins of the issue can be traced back to the growth of industrial fishing after World War II. The development of sonar, refrigeration, and deep-sea trawling enabled the fleets to sail farther and longer than ever. Although the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) subsequently tried to bring order by use of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), it was not very effective, especially for the developing states on the coastlines. It was into this vacuum that illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing has started, which is currently estimated to take up to 20 percent of the world’s catch and is costing coastal economies billions of dollars annually. However, the real price of illegal fishing has ceased to be a matter of economics. It has become climactic.
The Ocean’s Broken Carbon Cycle
Oceans are the planet’s largest carbon sink, which absorbs around a quarter of all the anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions occurring on the planet. Nevertheless, the position is reliant on complicated and intricately balanced marine environments. The illegal fishing interferes with this balance at its most crucial stages, and it happens by targeting large predatory species that include sharks, tuna, and billfish.
Climate scientists are increasingly concerned that climate stability and ocean health are inseparable. The “blue carbon” concept has ceased to remain theoretical and has now become a policy, as the UN Environment Programme and IPCC have acknowledged the significance of marine ecosystems as long-term carbon sinks. Research indicates that seagrass meadows have the potential to store carbon at a rate 35 times greater than tropical forests, with phytoplankton itself contributing almost half of the total carbon fixation by the biosphere. These systems, nevertheless, rely on healthy food webs. The disappearance of big predatory fish due to illegal fishing disrupts such webs and contributes to the degradation of the habitat and the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon dioxide.
Sharks, often vilified or misunderstood, are mainly apex regulators. When they are removed from the system, it triggers trophic cascades, which, as mentioned before, alter entire food webs. When predator populations collapse, mid-level species proliferate, which in turn overgrazes seagrass meadows and disrupts phytoplankton cycles. These mentioned habitats (seagrass, mangroves, and plankton) are among the most effective natural carbon sinks on Earth that store carbon at rates far higher than terrestrial forests.
Thus, once the ocean is deprived of regulators, the ability of the sea to absorb and store carbon is undermined indirectly by illegal fishing. This means that it is not biodiversity loss but what scholars refer to as carbon leakage. It would not be wrong to say that climate change is not only emitted from smokestacks, it is also facilitated by empty nets.
The fact that this dynamic increases the existing climate stress makes it particularly dangerous. Already, warmer waters, acidification, and deoxygenation are factors that are putting pressure on marine life. IUU fishing causes these ecosystems to go far beyond the tipping points. This in turn is making resilience into fragility.
From Ecological Collapse to Climate Migration
The effects are rapidly transmitted both by sea and shore. Communities along the coastlines, including South Asia, West Africa, and the Pacific, count on predictable marine ecosystems to provide food security in addition to a steady income. In case fish stocks collapse, it lacks a safety net. Boats return empty, markets shrink, and debt rises. What starts as seasonal migration of labor usually turns into permanent displacement.
This is what we term today as climate migration. No floods, no hurricanes, just the very gradual erosion of livelihoods, which is very concerning, especially in this age where people are not completely recovered from the financial strains of the pandemic era. The World Bank has already warned that climate change could displace over 200 million people by mid-century. However, one of the mechanisms that is silently contributing to that number is illegal fishing, particularly in those areas where the sea is both pantry and paycheck.
Furthermore, injustice here is stark. Foreign-owned industrial fleets often illegally drain value from the waters that they are not reliant on. The social and environmental cost of this is in turn transferred to the populations on the coast. It is a fact that climate vulnerability is now being outsourced and is now plausible.
Migration and political pressure are directly proportional, and in this instance, both of them are on the rise with all the urban overcrowding, cross-border migration, and unrest in the region. Nevertheless, illegal fishing is still discussed as a fisheries problem, which allows keeping it out of the context of climate adaptation or human security. This parochial thinking is exactly the reason as to why the problem remains. It is not just a conceptual failure but an institutional one.
Theoretically, flag states have the duty of controlling ships registered under their jurisdiction. In practice, many operate as flags of convenience, offering registration without any real supervision. This helps vessels to evade checks, change identities, and work with close impunity, all of which contribute to the problem. Monitoring reports around the world have shown that there is a disproportionate association of vessels that engage in IUU fishing with weak or non-compliant flag states.
This collapse impacts the entire system of maritime governance. The lax nature of enforcement is putting the blame on the coastal states, as the distant-water vessels exploit the loopholes in the law by using their advanced technologies. Despite the discussion of accountability and equity, climate agreements permit such a regulatory vacuum in the ocean.
Unless the issue of illegal fishing is addressed as a marginal offense, its climatic and migratory impacts are bound to worsen. It is worrying but factual that the oceans that are drained today will create displaced people tomorrow.
We have history to tell us that the myth of infinite seas was never sound. The distinction is in the scale of the harm and the speed at which it is pumped into the ecosystem and the economy, between the carbon cycles and human mobility. It is not only incomplete but also self-defeating and delusional to deal with climate change without dealing with illegal fishing. The individuals who participate in this crime should be informed about the complex character of the issue; this can or cannot be useful, but it is worth it.
If we fail to govern the oceans, we should not be surprised when the climate is destroyed and people are forced to leave their shores.
* Javaria Shaikh is Phd scholar of International Relations at School of Integrated Social Sciences, University of Lahore, and Research Associate at Maritime Centre of Excellence, Lahore, Pakistan. Have number of publications published nationally and internationally. Area of research includes Defense and Strategic studies, Nuclear Deterrence and Arms Control.
