RT Journal Article
T1 Unveiling the hidden hands: Analysis of corporate ownership of industrial tuna fishing vessels in the Eastern Pacific Ocean
A1 Kinds, Arne
A1 Lazzari, Natali
A1 Skerritt, Daniel J.
A1 Ainsworth, Gillian B.
A1 Carvalho, Adriana Rosa
A1 Roumbedakis, Katina
A1 Majluf, Patricia
A1 Palomares, Maria Lourdes
A1 Sumaila, Ussif Rashid
A1 Villasante Larramendi, Carlos Sebastián
K1 Global fisheries governance
K1 Ownership analysis
K1 Tuna
K1 Equity
K1 Eastern Pacific Ocean, (EPO)
AB Distant-water fishing (DWF) refers to fishing operations conducted by companies in waters beyond their national exclusive economic zones (EEZs), often targeting the EEZs of other coastal states or international waters. Research on DWF typically emphasizes the flag states of vessels, rather than the nationalities of the corporations that own them, despite evidence of efforts to obscure ownership. This paper examines the corporate owners of 1648 industrial and semi-industrial tuna fishing vessels in the Eastern Pacific Ocean (EPO) using Orbis data, analyzing ownership at three levels: flag state, direct corporate owners, and ultimate corporate owners. Results show that flag state data alone understate the true fishing capacity of key DWF nations. Shifts in ownership nationality across levels are significant, notably for Taiwanese and Spanish corporations owning vessels through proxies in the Global South. These ownership shifts impact 6 % of vessels and 14 % of gross tonnage in the registered EPO tuna fleet. Furthermore, spatial analysis using Global Fishing Watch data highlights the Galapagos Islands EEZ as a critical fishing zone, frequently accessed by foreign fishing corporations through Ecuadorian intermediaries. This study underscores the need to incorporate ownership data into fisheries governance for greater transparency and accountability. The systematic collection and analysis of ownership data would allow fisheries managers to better monitor capacity, address power concentration, and promote policies that ensure fairer distribution of resources and benefits.
PB Elsevier
SN 0308-597X
YR 2025
FD 2025
LK https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44636
UL https://hdl.handle.net/10347/44636
LA eng
NO Kinds, A., Lazzari, N., Skerritt, D. J., Ainsworth, G. B., Carvalho, A. R., Roumbedakis, K., ... & Villasante, S. (2025). Unveiling the hidden hands: Analysis of corporate ownership of industrial tuna fishing vessels in the Eastern Pacific Ocean. Marine Policy, 171, 106474.
NO This paper was made possible thanks to funding from USAID in the context of an international study on the impacts of Distant Water Fishing fleets. We would like to extend our special thanks to JoyDeLee Marrow (IATTC) for granting us access to the RVR, and to Jorge Martín Silván (Bureau van Dijk) for his help with the extractions of ownership data from the Orbis database. SV thanks the financial support from the EQUALSEA project (Transformative Adaptation Towards Ocean Equity), under the European Horizon 2020 Program, ERC Consolidator (Grant Agreement #101002784) funded by the European Research Council, and from the Gain Oportunius Program of Xunta de Galicia, to cover the costs of the Orbis database. The authors thank the reviewers for their critical reflection on the manuscript draft, which has significantly improved the quality and rigor of our work.
DS Minerva
RD 20 may 2026