HMS Queen Elizabeth Underway

Royal navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) transits the Atlantic Ocean, Sept. 23, 2019. (Photo courtesy of HNLMS De Ruyter)

WASHINGTON — The United Kingdom today published a new five-year maritime strategy that focuses on improving freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific while also “officially [recognizing] environmental damage as a maritime security concern to address modern issues such as illegal fishing.”

“Our new maritime security strategy paves the way for both government and industry to provide the support needed to tackle new and emerging threats and further cement the UK’s position as a world leader in maritime security,” Grant Shapps, secretary of state for transport, said in a statement published alongside the document.

The strategy’s authors, leaders of five departments including defense, call out Russia’s war in Ukraine in the foreword, characterizing the document as being published “at a time of increased global tension.” They also write that leaving the EU “has given [the UK] the ability to develop policies and strategies that represent the priorities and values that matter most to the British people.”

“The National Strategy for Maritime Security captures this,” the document says.

Among the strategy’s priorities, the government’s aim to increase the country’s maritime presence in the Indo-Pacific by deploying two Offshore Patrol Vessels, a “Littoral Response Group” and a “Type 31 Frigate later in the decade.”

“Elsewhere, Offshore Patrol Vessels will be forward deployed to the South Atlantic and Caribbean and will maintain a presence in the Mediterranean and African Coast,” according to the document.

The strategy also says the country will establish a “UK Centre for Seabed Mapping” which will “coordinate cross-government and industry collaboration in order to increase the quantity, quality, and availability of data in the marine domain.”

“Mankind has better maps of the surface of the moon and Mars than of our own ocean. To ensure the UK’s maritime security is based on informed and evidence-based decisions, we must build our knowledge of this dynamic ocean frontier,” Shapps said in the written statement.

Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is also becoming a higher priority for the UK, and the government says it will publish a “national plan” to tackle the issue by the end of this year.

“It is estimated that IUU fishing activities are responsible for the loss of 11-26 million tonnes of fish each year, with a global value of between $10-23 billion a year,” according to the document. “It is imperative that measures are strengthened to tackle IUU fishing in order to support the UK’s own global maritime security.”