The Struggle to Make a Living: How EU IUU Fishing Policy Impoverishes Local Fisheries’ Livelihoods in Vietnam

Globally, the EU is leading the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The aim is to restore marine resources and sustain fishers’ livelihoods in the long-term. Based primarily on its market power, the EU forces third countries to reform their fisheries legislation to eliminate IUU fishing. Highlighting a case study in Vietnam, this chapter demonstrates that the EU IUU fishing policy is impoverishing, not sustaining, the livelihoods of fishers and other fisheries-related actors (e.g., intermediaries and fishing logistic providers). Both the EU and Vietnamese governments prioritise eliminating IUU fishing, with little to no attention to the policy impacts on the livelihoods of fishers and fisheries-related actors. The EU’s IUU fishing policy has been imposed on Vietnam without consideration of its history of fisheries development and the social-ecological conditions that shape fishers’ and fisheries-related actors’ dependency on IUU fishing. Addressing this dilemma requires the EU and third countries to guide and support fishers and fisheries-related actors to reduce their dependency on IUU fishing, rather than immediately ordering them to stop. The Vietnamese case study offers an empirical contribution to debates on the failure of environmental governance to secure the livelihoods of resource users. It contributes to broader debates around the question “sustainable for whom?” and looks at how top-down policy interventions could have been done better.