Sun, Jun 30, 2002 page12

• Fishing becomes deadly -- and not just for fish

  The enormous increase in fish poaching in the waters around Sakhalin is a result of he corrupt compromises between business and the government that have taken hold in Russia in the last decade

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  The ports are quiet in the remote Russian island of Sakhalin, just north of Japan. Fishing boats return home empty. Most canneries stopped operating years ago.

  But further out in the waters off the narrow, green island off Russia's eastern coast, boats jockey for position to catch the region's valuable crabs and fish. The catches are destined for Japan, avoiding Russian ports, taxes and fishing quotas.

  Vitaly Gamov, a career military man and commander in Russia's border guards, came here in November 2000 to fight that illegal fishing. His mission cost Gamov his life.

  

  A small port in the southern part of Sakhalin used to be bustling with fishermen in Soviet times but has lost most of its business to poachers.

  PHOTO: NY TIMES

  In late May, attackers threw three flaming jars of gasoline through his kitchen window. He died from the burns a week later. His wife, Larisa, recently regained consciousness after five skin grafts in a hospital in Japan. Their 14-year old son, Ivan, escaped unharmed.

  Gamov died trying to change the rules in a system that is built on the corrupt compromises between business and the government that have taken hold in Russia in the chaotic decade since the fall of the Soviet Union.

  President Vladimir V. Putin says he wants to break those links, but the roots run deep.

  Last year Putin's economics minister insisted on the sale of fishing rights at auctions to get more revenue from the industry and move control of it to Moscow. That infuriated regional governors and fishing companies that until then had fished virtually free.

  "Sakhalin has very big poaching problems," said Sergei Darkin, governor of the neighboring Primorsky region. "Gamov fought hard against poaching."

  After the fire, Putin intervened to send a severely burned Gamov to a hospital in Japan. Local clinics were not well enough equipped to treat his injuries.

  In recent years Russia has lost control of the fishing industry here, as it has of much else. When the government imposed fishing quotas and tried to levy taxes on the profits of Russian fishermen, the fishermen responded by falsifying their records and delivering their catches directly to Japan and South Korea, where the buyers asked no questions.

  A study last year by the World Wildlife Fund of illegal fishing in the Russian portion of the Bering Sea found evidence of illegal activities at "virtually all levels" of the industry.

  The report estimates that fishing firms illegally strip US$4 billion from the waters each year, "putting numerous marine species at risk and contributing to the collapse" of fish supplies.

  The Russian border patrol of which Gamov was a part, impoverished by budget cuts and hampered by widespread corruption, is no match for the rich and powerful industry. One fishing company manager on Sakhalin said border guards would agree to ignore a poacher's boat in return for a US$2,500 bribe.

  Illegal fishing costs the government about US$500 million a year in missed taxes, according to the state Fishing Committee.

  Evidence of declining stocks abounds.

  One Sakhalin crab poacher, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said that in the early 1990s he caught enough to make three selling runs a week to Japan. Last year he made the trip barely once a week.

  "We always had poachers, but never in these proportions," said the president of the Far East Fishery Association, Vladimir Gorshechnikov. "I've been in fishing for many years, but even for me this situation is horrifying."

  While stocks shrink and fishing has increased rather than abated, official government figures show a collapse. In 1990, before the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia caught 7.8 million tons of fish. Four years later, official counts had fallen by more than half, to 3.5 million tons.

  Gamov made many enemies after arriving on Sakhalin. He agreed with the Japanese authorities that Russian boats in Japanese ports must tighten reporting on their catches. He set up more control stations at sea. Through his lobbying, the Sakhalin regional prosecutor began investigating 44 Russian fishing vessels flagged in an audit by Japan.

  "Gamov created a system that was closing the poaching flows in the direction of Japan," said Viktor Fokanov, a fishing company owner in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. "If you close the flow, poaching disappears. He knew how to do this, and he didn't have far to go."

  In December 2001, Putin promoted Gamov, then just 39, making him one of the youngest generals in the Russian military.

  The military had been his life. Even as a child growing up in a small town in Kazakhstan, Gamov was drawn to the army. His sister, Galina Spiridonova, recalled that he had led his school team to victory in a war game.

  Those who knew Gamov socially said he was outgoing, liked to play the accordion in his spare time, treated his men with respect and worked long hours.

  But Gamov rose through the ranks of a system that had been deformed by economic crisis. After the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, the Russian government could no longer afford to finance its military. Units like Gamov's were plunged into poverty. They faced the impossible task of defending Russia's borders without funding.

  As living conditions deteriorated, taking bribes was a way to survive.

  Igor Barabanov, a lieutenant colonel on the Kurile Islands further out in the Pacific, served briefly under Gamov. He recalled lacking basics, like soap, and fruits and vegetables. Visiting superiors told him to "find yourself a sponsor."

  "I was supposed to go to local businessmen and ask for financial support," said Barabanov, who now works as a security guard in the Primorsky region. "It was humiliating. Some of them would just give money. Maybe they had served in the army themselves once. But others would want things in return."

  Most here say criminals from a mid-size fishing firm were to blame, since Gamov's murder was clumsy and amateurish, like a warning gone wrong. The authorities have arrested several men believed to be the hired killers but have not answered the question of who hired them.
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