The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Oliver Berry returned home to Honolulu this week in time for holiday festivities following a 38-day expeditionary fishery patrol in the South Pacific.
The Oliver Berry's crew conducted 12 fisheries boardings, identified 16 fishery and safety violations and completed 18 community relation events while sailing from Honolulu to Kiribati, Samoa, the kingdom of Tonga and American Samoa during the 7,000-nautical-mile patrol before returning to its homeport on Tuesday, according to a news release.
The Coast Guard has increasingly focused on fishery enforcement missions as the world's fish stocks reach dangerously low levels and illegal fishing runs rampant. In 2020, the Coast Guard said illegal and unreported fishing had surpassed piracy as the most pressing security threat at sea, warning that “this exploitation erodes both regional and national security, undermines maritime rules-based order, jeopardizes food access and availability, and destroys legitimate economies.”
The U.S. government also has sought lately to assert its presence in the Pacific islands after years of largely neglecting the region to focus on the Middle East, East Asia and Europe. But increasing Chinese efforts to court influence in the region have prompted a renewed interest in Pacific island nations from American policymakers.
During the first port call of the patrol at Kiritimati island, Kiribati, before…
