The fight against illicit fishing of the oceans is moving into space

ILLEGAL, unreported and unregulated. The business of off-the-books ocean fishing, abbreviated to IUU by acronym-loving international organisations, is a big one, worth many billions of dollars a year. Estimates of the annual catch landed beyond the authorities' notice range from 11m to 26m tonnes. That is on top of an official catch of a bit under 90m tonnes a year. Given the belief of most fisheries scientists that even permitted extractions are doing great damage to marine ecosystems, this is ...