U.S., September 12, 2023 - Care goods were loaded for 1,150 deploying service members last week! All made possible by your donations! Your SOT Team focuses solely on serving the active duty servicemembers who are serving all of us. In America, all good comes from those who rise to the occasion like SOT donors have clearly done. They deliver for us -- we deliver for them. A simple moral equation.
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Atlantic Ocean. (September 5, 2023): While chasing drug traffickers gets all the headlines, America’s Coast Guard protects us in an important, if not so flashy, way. In this photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Mikaela McGee, Coast Guardsmen assigned to U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Forward assist fisheries inspectors with the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization to measure a fishing net while at sea. Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) is one of the greatest threats to ocean health and a significant cause of overfishing. It contributes to the collapse or decline of fisheries that are critical to the economic growth, food systems, and ecosystems of numerous countries around the world. It is also a global problem that disadvantages law-abiding fishers and seafood producers.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, between 11 and 26 million metric tons of fish are caught illegally each year. By avoiding the operational costs associated with sustainable fishing practices, fishers, companies, and nations that engage in IUU fishing receive economic benefit over legitimate actors. These criminals exceed harvesting limits and disregard other conservation and management measures, destroy habitats, and use methods that result in wasteful bycatch. These practices destroy not only the resource today, but also its ability to be sustainably harvested for years and decades to come. Left without alternatives, these conditions entice more and more fishers to seek alternative sources of income such as piracy, drug trafficking, and human trafficking, creating a dangerous downward cycle furthering regional instability.
Examples of IUU fishing include:
The Coast Guard, however, faces an elusive enemy in this war against overfishing. The inherent nature of IUU fishing makes it difficult to accurately quantify the full global economic impacts from these activities. But there is little disagreement that it is in the billions, or even tens of billions, of dollars each year.
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BODO, NORWAY, March 8, 2022 - II MEF presents secure expeditionary communication capability - U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Curtis (left), and Lance Cpl. Dylan Shawver, guard force sentries with 2d Marine Expeditionary Support Battalion, II Marine Expeditionary Force, pose with a portable handset enabled with PacStar Radio over Internet Protocol (RoIP) during Exercise Cold Response 2022, Bodo, Norway, March 9, 2022. PacStar RoIP is a critical communication capability which enables instantaneous and simultaneous two-way radio
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