On the far-western edge of the Indian Ocean, a fisherman hauls in his net and is disappointed by the catch. He tosses the smallest back, moves his boat, and throws the net again. Every day, he’s seen the stock dwindle as foreign ships flying African flags, yet hailing from the Far West and Far East, drop trawling nets – thin meshed and massive, to catch everything from the smallest guppy to the largest sailfish. The fisherman suspects his stock is being siphoned away, but he can only watch as his livelihood is stolen by those with more power and more money, hailing from countries he will never see. The daily theft by these unregistered commercial trawlers is illegal, but it’s a gamble they’re willing to take. 

At stake is a billion-dollar resource, and the illicit vessels are banking on a few things. Can African coast guards and navies find them before they flee to distant markets? If they do, can the rogues escape across a maritime border and count on a lack of communication between nations to make an escape? Worse – even if caught, will the suspect fisherman eventually go free because evidence or witness testimony was contaminated during the search and seizure? 

Every day, this high stakes game is played out in the territorial waters of nations sharing the Indian Ocean.

To Build a Coast Guard: Kenya’s Response to IUU

“Before 2018, they would fish our waters, maybe process [the fish], and then take it back to their nation’s ports,” said Timothy Wamalwa, an operator in the Kenyan Coast Guard. “We’d lose a lot of revenue, and it had become almost normal for anyone to come into our territorial waters, fish them, and then go… For the local fisherman, they rely on the same resource. They had this feeling that they were being deprived of what was theirs. It was illegal, but there was no security organ that could enforce that law.”

It’s not just fish, either. Foreign actors would smuggle goods from resource-rich but infrastructure-poor East African nations, skirting tax and tariff charges to sell at an astronomical profit in foreign markets. More insidious, criminal organizations would smuggle drugs into a country, and people out of them, crippling the communities and condemning the trafficked to difficult lives.

This changed, for Kenya at least, with the creation of their coast guard in 2018. Wamalwa, a former Corporal in the Kenyan Navy, was an initial recruit to the fledgling service – still so new that it hasn’t yet finalized ranks. But, according to Wamalwa, after only five years of existence, the newly instituted, trained, and equipped force has already reduced illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing of their territorial waters by almost 70%.

“It comes down to law enforcement and capacity building,” Wamalwa said, explaining how the Kenyan Coast Guard spun up its operations so quickly. “A good example is a couple of weeks ago – we just had training with the U.S. Coast Guard on small boat operations… It was a plus to our knowledge and handling of boats at sea.”

Kenya’s Coast Guard, and their 70% IUU reduction, is the beginning of a maritime-success story. But it’s only one country in East Africa. While others are advancing…