Republic of the Marshall Islands hosts successful regional maritime surveillance operation

Press Release #1109-36
Palikir, Pohnpei – FSM Information Services
November 27, 2009

By Anouk Ride, Media and Publications - Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency

MAJURO, MARSHALL ISLANDS: The 6th Operation Bigeye, a coordinated maritime surveillance operation in which countries cooperate to detect activities such as illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, smuggling and people trafficking, was hosted by the Marshall Islands during the past two weeks.

Approximately 200 personnel from a variety of Pacific nations were actively involved in Operation Bigeye which resulted in locating over 500 foreign fishing vessels in the area of operations,30 of which were considered worthy of further investigation and boarded after further analysis.  Eight Patrols Boats were at sea throughout the operation supported by a US Coastguard C130 Surveillance aircraft.

Covering an area of 2 million square nautical miles - including the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) of Marshall Islands, Kiribati, FSM, Palau, Nauru and PNG – Operation Bigeye 2009 involved surveillance and law enforcement staff from all of these countries working together with their counterparts from Australia and the US over 12 days of surveillance activities.

Surveillance was conducted by individual countries within their respective EEZ’s using 8 Pacific Class Patrol Boats (from Marshall Islands, Kiribati, FSM(3) PNG(2) and Palau). This was supported by aerial surveillance provided by a Hercules C-130 from the US Coast Guard and an Australian Armidale class patrol boat conducting a separate surveillance operation, Operation Solania.

Operation Bigeye was coordinated by a team based in the Marshall Islands National Police Force Sea Patrol Operations Room, funded from the Australian Defense Cooperation Program.  The program also provided the fuel for the participating patrol boats. The Operations Room relies on access to the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA) Regional Fisheries Surveillance Centre (RFSC) which collects, displays and analyses aircraft and vessel movements over the entire operations area in an interactive display. By collating information from regional and national license and suspected illegal fishing lists, the FFA RFSC can identify and monitor suspicious vessels.  Regional surveillance staff, trained by FFA in the use the RFSC operations system, can then prioritize their operations efforts, contact national staff and make decisions on where to allocate surveillance aircraft and patrol boats.

Operation Bigeye also involved participation by the United States Navy as an observer in the regional headquarters with a view to providing aircraft participation for future regional MCS operation.

Operation Bigeye is a regional activity sponsored by Australia to meet the broader objectives of sustainable development and regional security of The Pacific Plan.