The behavioral drivers of illegal Indonesian small-scale transboundary fishing in the Australian fishing zone

Abstract The root causes of illegal fishing internationally are numerous and diverse, but is predominantly framed in the literature and media as a security threat and/or crime. This casts illegal fishers as rational decision-makers who perceive the benefits of engaging in unlawful fishing as likely to outweigh the perceived risks and costs. However, a growing scholarship indicates that fisher decision-making is likely to be much more nuanced and be motivated by much more specific ‘illegal fishing drivers’. These actor-based drivers are enabled by the broader social, economic and political contexts in the environment where people live and work. This has led to the emergence of new conceptualizations of illegal fishing, for example, as a ‘wicked problem’, and/or as a product of opportunity rather than underlying motivation. In this paper, we share the results of a collaborative Australian–Indonesian research study into the multiple drivers of the high levels of illegal Indonesian small-scale (including artisanal) transboundary fishing in northern Australian waters since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We use a conceptual framework of non-compliance that captures a dynamic interplay of behavioral drivers that appear to facilitate the recent spike in illegal Indonesian small-scale fishing in the Australian Fishing Zone. Drawing on mixed methods research conducted in four communities of Nusa Tenggara Timur Province, Indonesia, we identify seven behavioral driver categories: economic and livelihood; COVID-19 related; psychological; environmental; cultural and historical; social; and policy and management. These drivers and their 28 dimensions reveal some of the contextual enablers that appear to underpin Indonesian small-scale transboundary fishing. These findings help our understanding of the resurgence of illicit fishing incursions and support identifying long-term solutions for viable community development and policy alternatives for enforcing Australia’s borders. Our study contributes more broadly to the study of non-compliance in small-scale transboundary fishing and small-scale fishing livelihoods.