Inspections

Port state control

As a major shipping nation with a highly effective Port State Control regime in our own ports, Kenya has now play a leading role in making Port State Control more effective in the Indian Ocean Region.

The Indian Ocean is a vast natural resource providing livelihood for people living around the ocean as well as for distant nations seeking to exploit the resources especially fish stock. It is also a vital thoroughfare carrying 80 per cent of the world’s seaborne trade in oil.

Thus, the movement and activities of ships in the Indian Ocean is of interest to individual countries and the region as a whole. Countries bordering the Indian Ocean have particular concerns about the management of the ocean.

Each nation bordering or located within the Indian Ocean has the sovereign right to exercise control over all ships including foreign flagged vessels operating within its waters. Port state control is one way that a country can exert its authority to prevent or reduce incidences at sea that may harm the sustainability of marine resources or interfere with the transport routes through the region. In this chapter, the committee considers port state control in the Indian Ocean rim as a means of exercising effective control over illegal activities such as piracy and practices that could pose a threat to the health of the ocean and the sustainability of its resources.

Countries in the Indian Ocean rim have a strong incentive to impose robust port state control measures on foreign ships in order to ensure safe practices and to minimise the likelihood of their engagement in criminal activities in their offshore waters.

FDMIS addressing Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing

While countries in the Indian Ocean rim share worries about unsafe ships sailing through the region and marine pollution through inappropriate practices, they also have other common concerns about activities including illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Over recent decades there has been mounting international concern about IUU fishing and its serious consequences for the sustainability of fisheries. International and regional organisations now appreciate that IUU fishing could lead to the collapse of a fishery or severely impede efforts to rebuild depleted stocks.