Written by Elliott Matthews; USC Sea Grant 2022 Knauss Fellow
Cover image description: Visiting Ninh Binh, a world heritage site in Vietnam.
Published March 31, 2023
Fellow fellows, future fellows, friends of fellows, and everyone else this alliterative opening might have missed: Do you like going to fish auction houses at 3 am to watch fish landings and look for signs of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing? Because I sure do. As a lifelong fish nerd whose favorite travel activity is to visit the local fish market, my answer when asked this question during Knauss Placement week in 2021 was also emphatically yes (despite knowing little about IUU fishing at the time). Thankfully, this interest and a few favorable interviews placed me with an office that does such work, NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement (OLE).
OLE’s general mandate is to enforce laws that conserve and protect the nation’s marine resources and natural habitat. As you might expect, this includes responsibilities like conducting fishery patrols and investigations, inspecting air and shipping imports, and working with local fishermen to comply with federal mandates. Something you might not expect, and what I spent most of my energy supporting this past year, was their capacity-building efforts around international fishery enforcement. Specifically, I assisted countries to implement the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA).
Over the last decade, addressing IUU Fishing has received more attention on both domestic and international scales. The PSMA was crafted specifically to address this environmental challenge and entered into force in June 2016. For signed parties, the PSMA sets the minimum standards necessary to land freshly caught seafood products from foreign fishing vessels. That said, anyone who has worked in policy before knows that writing a policy and successfully implementing it are often two different challenges. That’s where we came in.
As OLE’s 2022 International Fisheries Policy Fellow, I supported partners in Southeast Asia–primarily Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam–to implement the PSMA. This support looked different for each country because of unique cultural contexts and varying levels of familiarity with the agreement. In general, though, it involved coordinating with OLE’s PSMA experts and delivering workshops tailored to a country’s respective stage of implementation.
As a fellow, this meant many late-night calls with partners in opposite time zones, learning more about their respective systems, and coordinating workshops. It also resulted in two trips to Southeast Asia.
For example, a country that recently ratified the PSMA might want to better understand the minimum requirements of the agreement and who is responsible within their system to carry out these requirements (i.e. who is going to do inspections and who needs to communicate for the system to function properly). For those who are more familiar, efforts might focus on developing a PSMA training curriculum that inspectors can use to cultivate and maintain their own, domestic, training program. As a fellow, this meant many late-night calls with partners in opposite time zones, learning more about their respective systems, and coordinating workshops. It also resulted in two trips to Southeast Asia.
Specifically, in 2022, I traveled to Vietnam in July and Thailand in September to support four PSMA and counter-IUU fishing workshops. They each followed a similar pattern. After traveling 12 hours into the future on 20+ hours of flights, our team would arrive in the country, meet with our partners, and finish any last-minute preparations or adjustments that needed to be made before the workshop began. From there, we jumped into various PowerPoints, discussions, and mock training exercises.
Perhaps my favorite role during these events occurred during the mock inspection exercises when I became Captain Elliott—a sometimes honest fisherman trying to unload his catch at your local port.
For these exercises, our team developed three scenarios with varying levels of PSMA infractions. With help from our partners, we were also able to gain access to local fishing vessels that we used to set up each of the exercises. This was important because it allowed participants a more realistic example of how inspections are conducted. Workshop participants were then placed into mock inspection teams and came aboard to interview the Captain and conduct their own PSMA inspection. In my pretend Captain role, I assure you, dear reader, that my intentions were always pure of heart; however, in some instances, the participants were able to prove otherwise by working together to cross-reference ship documentation and identify several signs of IUU fishing when exploring the vessel, including a set of inconspicuously placed 3D-printed shark fins.
I feel so fortunate to have been placed with OLE and to have had the opportunity to support many different endeavors.
Without question, helping lead these workshops was one of the most informative and developmental experiences of my Knauss year. I feel so fortunate to have been placed with OLE and to have had the opportunity to support many different endeavors. That said, there is a lot more I could elaborate on just related to my Thailand and Vietnam trips (the food, the vibrant cities, and perhaps most interestingly, the smells!!), let alone the remainder of my year. Given my limited word count though, I want to share my two main takeaways from my experience.
The first is that the Foreign Affairs Specialist life is less glamorous than you might initially expect. Jet lag was my first initiation into this reality. Trying to acclimate to a 12-hour time difference while also working long days to conduct workshops and balance events occurring back home was exhausting. Adding on a fun and unexpected surprise or two, like getting food poisoning, provided another layer to test my endurance. Despite these challenges, I honestly enjoyed every moment and feel extremely fortunate to have gotten a glimpse into the Foreign Affairs Specialist life. It is one of those things that you can only understand by “living it” and ultimately proved to be more rewarding than I could have ever imagined.
My second takeaway is that there are many amazing and dedicated people around the world working to support our oceans, fisheries, and seafaring communities. Every day on the job, I met someone new who was excited, proud, and committed to conserving these shared environments and resources. They were also equally as excited to share their culture and had a great appreciation for our team after workshops. No matter how tired I was or what challenges I faced in preparing for these events, I always left gratified because of the shared interactions I had with my team and partners.
Though I don’t know what comes after Knauss, I know I’m leaving it with a much greater understanding of international relations, fisheries, and capacity building than when I started over a year ago. It was an invaluable experience, and one I feel will shape my life for years to come.