Chinese trawlers

[Clitheroekid]

Whenever I read about the destruction of the world's oceans it seems that the Chinese are the ones that always appear at the top of the list.

I've just watched this BBC feature about their depredations in Sierra Leone, where they hoover up the fish - and most other sea creatures - with immensely destructive `pair trawling - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-afr ... ica-s-fish

Although pair trawling is illegal there, the SL authorities have only one patrol boat for the entire coastline, and it's virtually impossible to catch the trawlers in the act, as they're tipped off as soon as the patrol boat leaves port.

It really upsets me to witness the way that this industrial fishing - three quarters of the boats are Chinese, but there are Russian and EU ones there as well - is destroying the fisheries for local people who are dependent on fishing for a living.

And, of course, it's not just SL where this has happening - illegal and destructive industrial fishing is a worldwide phenomenon.

From a practical point of view I'd have thought that a spotter aircraft would be immensely useful in that it could photograph the trawlers illegally fishing, so that, unlike with the boat patrol, they wouldn't have time to evade detection.

Of course, even if the offenders are caught there is still the problem of enforcement action. As the film shows, this is, to put it mildly, not terribly effective, though they do at last seem to be making some efforts to improve the situation. However, it's not fair to blame a poverty-stricken country with so many other priorities for its tiny budget.

As things stand, the chances of these trawlers ever being caught, let alone punished are minimal, so they'll just carry on. It's only when ships start being seized and nets destroyed that they'll take any notice.

There needs to be some form of well-funded international enforcement authority that could and would actively pursue offenders in these circumstances. It should be paid for by wealthy Western countries, as the wellbeing of the oceans is just as important for us as it is for countries like SL. I'm pretty sceptical about the way our foreign aid budget is deployed, but I'd be perfectly happy to see my money spent on things like this.

I have to say that it's extremely difficult to have much hope for the future when you see films like this. The situation seems to be getting worse, not better.

[ReformedCharacter]

Whenever I read about the destruction of the world's oceans it seems that the Chinese are the ones that always appear at the top of the list.

I've just watched this BBC feature about their depredations in Sierra Leone, where they hoover up the fish - and most other sea creatures - with immensely destructive `pair trawling - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-afr ... ica-s-fish

Although pair trawling is illegal there, the SL authorities have only one patrol boat for the entire coastline, and it's virtually impossible to catch the trawlers in the act, as they're tipped off as soon as the patrol boat leaves port.

It really upsets me to witness the way that this industrial fishing - three quarters of the boats are Chinese, but there are Russian and EU ones there as well - is destroying the fisheries for local people who are dependent on fishing for a living.

And, of course, it's not just SL where this has happening - illegal and destructive industrial fishing is a worldwide phenomenon.

From a practical point of view I'd have thought that a spotter aircraft would be immensely useful in that it could photograph the trawlers illegally fishing, so that, unlike with the boat patrol, they wouldn't have time to evade detection.

Of course, even if the offenders are caught there is still the problem of enforcement action. As the film shows, this is, to put it mildly, not terribly effective, though they do at last seem to be making some efforts to improve the situation. However, it's not fair to blame a poverty-stricken country with so many other priorities for its tiny budget.

As things stand, the chances of these trawlers ever being caught, let alone punished are minimal, so they'll just carry on. It's only when ships start being seized and nets destroyed that they'll take any notice.

There needs to be some form of well-funded international enforcement authority that could and would actively pursue offenders in these circumstances. It should be paid for by wealthy Western countries, as the wellbeing of the oceans is just as important for us as it is for countries like SL. I'm pretty sceptical about the way our foreign aid budget is deployed, but I'd be perfectly happy to see my money spent on things like this.

I have to say that it's extremely difficult to have much hope for the future when you see films like this. The situation seems to be getting worse, not better.

I watched it too this morning and agree, it's pretty depressing. One question that ran through my mind though was how much does the SL government want to upset the Chinese? I don't know about SL specifically but China invests heavily in many poor\struggling African countries, eg. Zimbabwe. So, the government may well take the view that it's better to upset poor local fishermen than the Chinese state.

RC

[ReformedCharacter]

WRT my previous post about Chinese economic influence in poor African countries:

Since July 29, 1971 when President Siaka Stevens signed diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), so much water has flown under the bridge of that formal relationship. One that has defined this long standing partnership with often conflicting interests. While China is seeking to expand its access to Sierra Leone’s mineral resources and acquiring infrastructural investment projects; Sierra Leone, on the other hand, is being lured into China’s unconditional low interest loans with absolutely no desire to be involve in its governance parameters. That has been the economic fuel which has ignited the flame of China’s growing influence in the West Africa nation of Sierra Leone.

http://standardtimespress.org/?p=4633

RC

[Itsallaguess]

There needs to be some form of well-funded international enforcement authority that could and would actively pursue offenders in these circumstances. It should be paid for by wealthy Western countries, as the wellbeing of the oceans is just as important for us as it is for countries like SL. I'm pretty sceptical about the way our foreign aid budget is deployed, but I'd be perfectly happy to see my money spent on things like this.

I have to say that it's extremely difficult to have much hope for the future when you see films like this. The situation seems to be getting worse, not better.

It's always interested me that when people talk about controlling population growth, often some people will raise the quite sensible predictions about 'peak-population', explaining that with the growing 'westernisation' of the developing world, it is expected to bring with it a shrinking in family sizes etc.

But then, even if we accept that prediction of 'peak global population', that isn't really the issue the planet is facing - it's the fact that what population there *is* can be seen to be getting wealthier, and this wealth brings with it opportunities, and some of those opportunities are to eat different and better foods than they've historically had access to....

So we might well see 'peak population', but that's not the issue - so long as the global population seeks access to diverse markets such as the example here with these fishing-grounds, then we're still going to be chasing scarcer and scarcer resources, even if it's with the same population numbers as we've got now...

The situation described with these fishing grounds is a symptom of the problem, and not the problem itself...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[dspp]

Whenever I read about the destruction of the world's oceans it seems that the Chinese are the ones that always appear at the top of the list.

CK,

I have been on quite a few trawlers in my time, and seen plenty more from the North Sea to China. The basic problem is, which half a dozen billion people are you going to select for sterilisation ?

(On current trends mother nature will get to do the choosing at some point).

regards,
dspp

[vrdiver]

A little closer to home, I've been diving up in Scotland in areas that have been trawled for scallops, and next to them where the trawlers have not been active; the difference in biodiversity of the seabed between trawled and not trawled is alarming. Trawled areas are turned into almost-deserts, with far fewer species remaining. The trawler uses weighted nets (often chains) to ensure they scoop up whatever is on the seabed. These destroy any sessile life, which in turn destroys the food chain in the area.

If you do like to eat scallops, choose hand-dived if you have the choice. They may be more expensive, but the divers collect only the target species and only those above the legal minimum size, unlike the trawlers who get masses of unwanted by-catch.

Back to the issue in the waters off of Sierra Leone; one local in the video noted that the snapper (fish) are getting smaller. The trawlers will have wiped out the larger fish, which leads to far fewer snapper eggs entering the plankton (the smaller ones can produce eggs, but its the largest fish that produce the most eggs, by several orders of magnitude). The fish eggs will be carried by the currents, as will the small fish until they settle, about a month later. The importance of this is that the Sierra Leone snapper population, along with other species, is being replenished from "upstream" but is unlikely to be doing much to keep the "downstream" populations going. As with other marine species, wiping out one area can have long term effects many miles away.

Marine species don't respect borders, nor is one country's local problem every really local when it comes to the oceans. Perhaps, like climate change, marine conservation needs to make the headlines a bit more often and political influence and law brought to bear, starting at home...

[vrdiver]

I refer the board back to my earlier 'Thoroughly Depressing' post.

We're killing everything. Soon there will just be us, dogs cats and farmed animals.

And as has been already mentioned, it's not just the number of folk, its the aspirations of people to eat meat, to own 'stuff' and live the western life.

We can't really let us humans select which people to cull to help the situation. Maybe mother nature will intervene and take control. A real nasty pandemic might just be in order.

We may well end up wiping out most other species that compete with us for resources, including rather a lot that we don't even know exist yet. It's possible, although I'd hate to give odds on it, that at some stage we'll get our own population and its resource consumption under control, possibly after humans start to colonise other planets (or build habitable orbitals etc.) At that point, science may be able to bring back a few of the critters we've wiped out, maybe even accelerate evolution to fill evolutionary niches that we've cleaned out. Provided we don't crash civilisation back into the stone age, or stall it at the current level of trivia-led consumption, there may still be hope for the planet.

Alternatively, we could do so much damage that humans are wiped out as the planet goes through a period where human life isn't supported any more. Evolution would probably have enough time to have another go at an intelligence-led experiment, which might one day wonder what the little fragments of preserved human activity are and whether they are evidence of intergalactic civilisation that once came visiting?!

[AleisterCrowley]

I refer the board back to my earlier 'Thoroughly Depressing' post.

We're killing everything. Soon there will just be us, dogs cats and farmed animals....

Only until the bees have gone.
Although if I had to put my money on one of the above, I reckon the cats will survive to inherit the Earth

[DiamondEcho]

Thai, Chinese and Burmese trawlers, they're the most common in SE-Asia, for roving and illegally fishing,
I spent a lot of time in SE-Asia, including Malaysia. Sometimes I'd be sitting on a beach on an island, in a 'Marine Reserve', and see such trawlers appear on the horizon after dark. They were usually after sharks (the apex of the marine ecosystem, without which it crumbles below), Napolean wrasse and so on.

A major problem is that these poorer but 'sea'rich' countries often don't have the resources to police their waters; they're ripe for being cleaned out. For local communities dependent on a healthy marine ecosystem who traditionally 'go out on a catch a fish for the family dinner' this is devestating.

I support Malaysia's answer to these illegal trawler's. Impound them, strip out the engines/etc and sell them and give the money to the Marine Park authorities for protection. Fill the hulls with rocks, and sink them in appropriate spots to make wreck-dives for paying tourists to dive on.

[GoSeigen]

And as has been already mentioned, it's not just the number of folk, its the aspirations of people to eat meat, to own 'stuff' and live the western life.

How dare you criticise the western lifestyle!


With a population of 325m the US still consumes more than China, India and Indonesia combined with their population of 3 billion. The gluttony and waste in the US is simply staggering. And that is what the rest of us emulate and aspire to.



GS