The ravage of industrial fishing

Industrial Fishing

The ravage of industrial fishing 
  

In Europe, ‘tangle drift nets’ several kilometers in length wreck havoc in the north sea the Atlantic and the Mediterranean .Weighted down at the bottom and held up by buoys at the top, these nets position themselves vertically beneath the surface of the water. They are allowed to drift with the currents and winds waiting for fish to be caught up in them. Sometimes they are attached at one end to a ship to ‘herd’ species towards the coast from the open sea. These nets are immense and much too long! Salmon is fished in the Baltic Sea with nets over 2 km long. The European Union voted to totally prohibit the use of tangle drift nets in community waters as of 1 January 2oo2.

Industrial fishing techniques are devastating. Fishermen not only haul in the species they are looking for but net other fish they don’t want. They throw most of them- either dead or dying- back into the sea. Some of these are endangered species. Between 27 and 35 million tons of fish are ‘wasted’ in this way, meaning nearly one third of all those that are caught! The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) of the United Nations has sounded the alarm. It estimates that the majority of fish stocks are being over exploited and that the number of industrial fishing vessels must be lowered by one quarter to return to the levels of abundance and catches of the 1970s.

Some states have already adopted measures forbidding or limiting the right to throw away fish at sea, primarily Iceland, Namibia, Norway and New Zealand. There are ways to fish only those species desired, but the techniques are not as profitable. But without resorting to selective fishing, net sizes could easily be reduced. 

To manage ocean resources, the United Nations Convention on the Low of the sea, also known as the Montego Bay Declaration was signed in 1982 and ratified by 130 states. The Declaration, which came into force twenty  years later, set up exclusive economic zones (EFZ) giving coastal states the exclusive fishing to all that the oceans contain within a370 kilometers (200 nautical miles)limit from their coasts. Of course t he states have also undertaken to protect and exploit the biological resources* of the high seas in such a way that sustainability is ensured. How is this accomplished? By encouraging fisheries to use selective fishing techniques that reduce waste to a minimum during hauls, by monitoring fishing operations, by preserving and restocking marine species endangered by extinction, and by preserving ecologically vulnerable zones. The IOC has also suggested creating protected areas on the high seas in international waters; many countries are opposed to this idea.      

Urbanization and tourism: threats to the littoral

In both industrialized countries and developing countries, such as Brazil, urban growth along the coast has reached its limits. In Europe, the Mediterranean shoreline is covered with constructions over hundreds and hundreds of kilometers, completely blocking the landscape. The sandy soil settles with the weight of buildings and must be held in place by enormous concrete embankments in some locations. Many cities built below sea level are sinking. Both financial and technical means are needed to keep this from happening; means that developing cities do not possess. Another major problem is sewerage water, which is discharged into the sea along the coast, endangering all marine organisms. To this must be added the massive influx of tourists and with them the construction of hotels in the dunes and beach ‘renovation’. Around 100 million tourists congregate on the shores of the Mediterranean every year. And if this trend continues, there may be three to four times more by 2025. This sudden population explosion causes much harm to the marine environment, but tourism also boosts the fragile economies of many countries. Since the tourism is largely dependent on the quality of the environment. 

           Human activity also includes the construction of dams on rivers and destruction of mangroves to make room to grow timber commercially. These practices not only endanger the fragile balance of the marine ecosystem but the human beings who depend on it as well. 

The ravage of industrial fishing