Illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing, or pirate fishing, poses a huge threat to the marine environment, biodiversity in food development depends on it. Losses due to pirate fishing are estimated between 10 and 23.5 billion dollars per year. Representing 11 to 26 million tonnes of fish. West African waters are estimated to be home to the highest levels of pirate fishing in the world. Fish is an essential source of protein for millions of people. Fishing is the main coastal employment along the coast. During a dramatic two-year investigation, the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) documented massive amounts of pirate fishing on the west coast of Africa. Pirate fishermen are literally out of control. They fish in protected areas, destroy and sabotage local fishermen's nets, hide their names and illegally ship their catch to sea. They evade arrest, attack local fishermen and mistreat their own crews. The captures of these pirates entered the EU. the largest seafood import market in the world. And this despite new European regulations. The regulation requires that any fish imported into Europe be accompanied by a catch certificate indicating the name, address, validating authority, name of the fishing vessel, license and home port. All this states that the catches were legally declared. 90% of vessels documented by the EJF fishing illegally are bottom trawlers. Bottom trawlers are ships that drag heavy nets across the seabed, catching all marine life in their path. Up to 75% of the catches taken on board these vessels are thrown back into the sea, dead or dying. Fish is the main source of protein for 2.9 billion people. But the United Nations recognizes that 80% of the world's fisheries are consumed in the ocean by catching almost every fish and selling it to Europe. “Estimated losses due to pirate fishing are estimated at $10 billion to $23.5 billion per year, representing between 11 million and 26 million fish.” (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2011). “Fish is an essential source of protein for millions of people.” (Environmental Justice Foundation, 2011). Pirate fishermen use nets they call "curtains of death" to catch hundreds of fish and kill them in the nets. Inshore fishermen can't compete with these. On February 8, 2013, a U.S. Coast Guard patrol vessel struck a five-mile-long illegal gillnet. filled with dead sharks, extending about 17 miles north between the US-Mexico border. A total of 255 blacktip sharks, 2 bull sharks and 109 bony sharks were trapped and killed inside the gillnet. ONLY MARKED PAGECLEAN