Noncompliance and IUU fishing

Measuring compliance

Illegal fishing is recognized as a major threat to marine species, ecosystems, fishing communities, and the management of sustainable seafood supply chains. However, little is known about the experiences of illegal fishers, including their own explanations for illegal behavior.

Direct questioning is one of the primary ways that data may be collected for the assessment and evaluation of legal compliance. Case studies using direct questioning for compliance monitoring among natural resource users tend to illustrate and develop quantitative survey methods over qualitative interviewing because of the overwhelming assumption that non-compliance is a highly-clandestine behavior.

This research explore the extent to which qualitative methods can offer simple and reliable baseline compliance assessments.