OCEAN
AWARENESS CAMPAIGN - A fictional story about a whale fighting for
survival in an ocean littered with thousands of discarded fishing nets.
The
ocean hangmen are subsidized by politicians and their policy makers to
go out and murder innocent marine mammals. They cut the price of diesel
bunker
fuels for ruthless fishermen, to cast their giant trawling nets, rip
up the seafloor and
abandon them when it suits. With no penalties. Knowing, that those
discarded fishing nets and ropes
will strangle defenseless whales, turtles and seals by the thousands.
Who
is the most guilty. Is it the person who kills, or the gathered crowd
who watch and do nothing. In criminal law, it is called a joint
enterprise. The people watching a murder, who do nothing to intervene,
become co-conspirators. Just as guilty as the person who actually stabs
their victim. Who cuts their throat, or beats them to a pulp.
It's
criminal behaviour on a grand scale. Making those who sit on their
hands, ocean criminals. Murderers, for condoning the practice, eyes blinkered. I
see no evil.
How
and why do our world leaders allow that to happen? Have they no
compassion. Don't they care about our ecology. Biodiversity?
Do
they just hate whales, seals
and turtles?
The
sad fact is, it's all about the money.
To those who govern our world,
all they care about is staying in power for long enough to become rich,
or increase the value of their assets. And you don't do that by biting
the hand of the trawler skippers that feed them.
Don't
rock the boat.
You
do that by talking about a problem. Saying how bad it is, then carrying
on as usual. They will say anything to get elected. Then simply do
nothing. Now is not a good time. Maybe next term. If you elect me again,
I'll see what I can do.
And
the crazy thing is, the voters believe them : (
That
is how Prime Ministers like
Boris Johnson get elected. They lie to the
electorate and Parliament.
One
million tons of dumped fishing nets, end up in the ocean every year.
It's a massive problem. Then there is the microplastic. Whales ingest
roughly a million pieces of that every day.
Even
Bojo may have hesitated: "We don't want to stop the whales
having fun, do we. They like dodging nets and ropes. It's an ocean game.
They'd been doing it for years. Evolution will develop a whale that
avoids ghost gear. We are doing them a favour in the long term. And, it
saves our brave fishermen a lot of time and trouble. All the bother of
reporting and cost of salvage."
This
is no exaggeration. Rivers all over the world are pouring single use
plastics into the ocean. Whales, baleen filter feeders, are ingesting
around a million pieces of microplastics a day, as part of their
unwanted diet of carcinogenic contaminants.
ABANDONED, LOST & DISCARDED FISHING GEAR (ALDFG)
While there has been some progress and willingness to address the issue of ocean plastic, thus far,
Abandoned, Lost and Discarded Fishing Gear (ALDFG) has not been explicitly mentioned in the international legally binding instrument on
plastics.
ALDFG, also known as ghost
gear, is both the most harmful form
of marine debris and one of the most significant contributors to ocean
plastics. A single abandoned net is estimated to kill an average of
500,000 marine
invertebrates (crabs and
shrimp), 1,700 fish and four seabirds. Some estimates show that an as much as 30% decline in
fish stocks can be attributed to ghost gear.
Furthermore, scientists estimate that up to 70% of all floating
macroplastics in ocean gyres by weight are from ALDFG. When swallowed,
ocean plastics have been shown to block the digestive tracks and
eventually kill marine animals of all sizes. In May 2020, after
performing a necropsy on a 47-foot-long beached sperm whale, scientists
discovered that its stomach was filled with a mass of fishing line,
fishing nets and other plastics which prevented it from absorbing
nutrients.
The science is clear - ghost gear, a major source of ocean
plastics, must be addressed in order to protect marine life and
environments, and the fisher and coastal communities that rely on it for
their livelihoods. Thus, if we want to collectively tackle plastic
pollution and its impact on the environment, a holistic strategy must
include recognition of the threat of ghost gear and binding measures to
prevent and mitigate its impacts on an international level.
More than 12 million tons of plastic end up in our seas every
year. Plastic pollution plagues every corner of the ocean and despite
growing awareness, the problem is only getting worse.
Fishing gear accounts for roughly 10% of that debris: between
500,000 to 1 million tons of fishing gear are discarded or lost in the
ocean every year. Discarded nets, lines, and ropes now make up about 46%
of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Ghost fishing gear is the deadliest form of marine plastic as it
unselectively catches wildlife, entangling marine mammals, seabirds,
sea turtles, and sharks, subjecting them to a slow and painful death
through exhaustion and suffocation.
Ghost fishing gear
also damages critical marine habitats such as coral reefs.
Additionally, it’s responsible for the loss of commercially valuable
fish stocks, undermining both the overall sustainability of
fisheries as well as the people who depend on fish for food and livelihoods.
EARTH.ORG 23 NOVEMBER 2020 - UP TO A MILLION TONS OF GHOST FISHING NETS ENTER THE OCEANS EACH YEAR - STUDY
Recent figures from the WWF indicate that between 500 000 and
one million tons of ghost fishing equipment are abandoned in the ocean
each year. Ghost nets are lost, abandoned or discarded fishing gear left
by fishermen. The proliferation of discarded ghost nets is a major
issue for marine life and sea habitats, as well as the commercial
fishing industry and marine vessels themselves. It is estimated that
ghost nets make up 46% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (now 1.6
million square km in size, three times that of France) and up to 10% of
all marine litter.
Ghost nets are made from a range of synthetic fibers, nylon and
other plastic compounds and are able to travel vast distances once lost
or abandoned. The most common type of ghost net is called a gillnet
(also referred to as a driftnet) which, if exceeding 2.5km in length,
have been banned within international waters by the UN since 1992.
Gillnets are used on top of the water’s surface as well as on the
seabed, acting like a wall in which fish and other marine life become
quickly entangled. There are also pots and other box-like traps. Fish
Aggregating Devices (FADs) are typically bamboo netting with buoys
attached, and are used beneath a
fishing
boat to trap extra catch. Purse seine netting, named for its purse-like
structure, works to envelop schools of fish, pulled to the surface at
the right moment. Trawling involves large volumes of netting being
pulled along the back of a heavy boat. Due to the nature of this
practice, netting can become easily caught at the bottom of the ocean.
Fish cages, wiring and hooks are also classified as ghost fishing
equipment.
Ghost nets are a threat to a multitude of ocean species, big and
small: Ghost nets don’t only catch fish; they also entangle sea
turtles,
dolphins, porpoises, birds,
sharks
and seals. These animals swim into nets, often unable to detect them,
and either sustain injuries or are drowned or suffocated. In 2018, it
was reported that up to 650,000 marine animals are killed by ghost nets
every year. If the animal is lucky enough to escape, it may still die
from its injuries. Often these tragic circumstances cause a long,
painful death. If the ghost net is caught on the seabed, smaller ocean
creatures begin feeding on the dead catch in the nets, reducing its
weight and allowing the netting to float up to the surface again. This
in turn creates a destructive cycle.
Figures indicate that over 40 000 tons of gillnets are abandoned
every year in South Korean waters (where the netting is particularly
popular) each year. In the North-East Atlantic, 25 000 ghost nets are
discarded each year – totalling up to 1 250km in length. Between 2014
and 2015, volunteers retrieved marked ghost nets that travelled 4 700km
from Maine, USA to the Cornish coast in England, totalling 51 tonnes of
netting. 7 000km worth of gillnets are lost in the
Atlantic Ocean annually, while in the United Arab Emirates, 260 000 traps are lost yearly and 250 000 in the
Gulf of
Mexico. A 12-month study in Thailand waters showed that 96%
of tangled animals were non-targets for fishermen. Finally, between 2004
and 2015, 13 000 ghost nets were removed from the northern coast of
Australia.
It takes approximately 600-800 years on average for ghost fishing nets to naturally decompose.
Seals and sea lions are particularly vulnerable, according to
the WWF report, finding that 1,500 Australian sea lions die annually due
to entanglement; 53% of these entanglements between 1997 and 2002
involved pups. In 2018, more than 300 300 dead olive ridley sea turtles
were spotted off the coast of Mexico. It was determined that they died
from hooks and nets. Further, more than 80% of Indian Ocean dolphins
have been killed from gillnets, classified as ‘by-catch’ while fishermen
were fishing for
tuna.
Also, the Vaquita (the most critically endangered ocean species) is
facing imminent extinction due to illegal fishing in the Sea of Cortez,
the one place where vaquitas are found. However, they are collateral in
the search for the Totoaba fish, highly desired for its medicinal
properties. As of March 2020, there are only ten remaining Vaquita in
the ocean.
In October 2019, a pregnant minke whale was found beached on the
coast of Scotland with ghost netting knotted in its mouth.
Representatives from Scottish Marine Animal Stranding Scheme said, “It
looked like it had become recently entangled in a section of discarded
or lost fishing net – this had become jammed in the baleen and then
dragged behind the animal. This would have hugely impaired the animal
from feeding or swimming normally, and likely led to an exhausting last
few hours of life. Based on the flank bruising and lungs, it appears
this creature live stranded and drowned in the surfline.”
Abandoned ghost nets are also doing considerable damage to
marine habitats. This is because the netting has a smothering effect on
reefs and consequently attracts invasive species, disease and parasites
to
coral
reefs, causing long-term damage to the ecosystem. Damage to
habitats can also occur when trawling and lobster pots (netted cages
designed to capture a range of crustaceans) destroy fragile coral during
strong currents and storms.
The benthos – ocean bottom regions - are also susceptible to the
impacts from discarded fishing gear and ghost fishing. Discarded
fishing gear, especially trap gear, sinks to the bottom where it can
smother organisms that live on top of and just below the sediments, like
seagrasses, crabs, and worms. These harmful practices are
counterproductive to fishermen, who will ultimately suffer the
consequences of destroying marine ecosystems as their catches will be
affected. It is estimated that 53% of the world’s fisheries are fully
exploited, while a further 32% are considered to be overexploited or
recovering from overexploitation. Ghost fishing nets are left in the sea
for a variety of reasons. Gear may be abandoned when fishermen cannot
retrieve the net due to it snagging on rocks and coral on the seabed.
Some fishing vessels cannot afford to retrieve stuck gear. Fishing nets
are considered lost when marker buoys become detached or if heavy tides
remove netting from its original location of deployment. Retrieval
becomes especially difficult if the vessel does not use
GPS
technology. Sometimes ghost nets are abandoned deliberately due to poor
on-shore facilitation for disposal as well as high disposal costs.
Additionally, if an illegal fishing vessel is in danger of being caught,
nets may be cut off or thrown overboard.
There are a great number of solutions and technological measures
that have been implemented to help retrieve ghost nets – if used more
broadly with government support, the clean-up process could be more
efficient and widespread. Producing nets with biodegradable components
could shorten the time that abandoned gear is left intact in the ocean.
Project NetTag is working on a special underwater acoustic transponder
for fishermen to secure to their gear. About the size of a matchbox,
these transponders have batteries similar to smartphones, but use
circuitry which requires very low power, which means they can operate
for many months attached to a net. Another European project called
MarGnet has been researching the effectiveness of a sonar device which
is attached to the seabed to decipher pollution hot-spots through
generating an 360 degree underwater map which is then investigated by
diving teams. Underwater drones such as Deep Trekker’s
Remote Operated Vehicles
(ROVs) are able to operate in extreme weather conditions and are a
useful tool in locating ghost nets. In 2015, a WWF-led search along the
Baltic Sea
resulted in 268 tons of ghost fishing gear being removed from the
ocean. There are plenty of other examples of grassroot clean-up of
missions.
WHAT CAN BE DONE?
Governments across the world should do more to remove ghost nets and clamp down on
illegal fishing.
World Animal Protection has formed a Global Ghost Gear Initiative that
calls for an alliance of governments and organisations to share data,
resources and education on the issue as well as coordinate search
efforts. The
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
underpin the rules and legalities of human activity at sea, but WWF
says that more action must be taken to apply these regulations. Article
194 of the convention provides for state regulation of fishing gear by
providing the licensing of fishing equipment used in waters under
national jurisdiction. However, implementation and enforcement should be
strengthened at the global, regional and national levels, including
through the adoption of adequate implementing legislation.
In 2009, the European Community Council Regulation enforced a
law stating that fishermen are obligated to retrieve and report lost
netting. However, Greek fisherman Vannis Athinaios has witnessed this
law being ignored: “The law is not enforced. Most of us have equipment
like GPS and plotters. Big boats have advanced equipment and crews of
divers to track lost gear down, but they don’t do it because they can
make €6,000, the cost say, of a lost net on any given day.” In 2008, The
FAO Committee on Fisheries set guidelines for marking fishing gear,
however they are voluntary. Elizabeth Hogan of Oceans and Wildlife with
World Animal Protection says that governments should take the matter
more seriously, “This would not only result in loss prevention by
responsible fisheries, it would also help stop illegal fishing (IUU),
which accounts for intentionally discarded gear (typically abandoned at
sea to avoid detection).
ILLEGAL, UNREPORTED, AND UNREGULATED FISHING (IUU)
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing remains one of the
greatest threats to marine ecosystems due to its potent ability to
undermine national and regional efforts to conserve and manage fish
stocks and, as a consequence, inhibits progress towards achieving the
goals of long-term sustainability and responsibility. IUU fishing takes
advantage of corruption and exploits weak management regimes, in
particular those of countries lacking the capacity and resources for
effective monitoring, control, and surveillance (MCS). IUU fishing
threatens marine biodiversity, livelihoods, exacerbates poverty, and
augments food insecurity. The focus of the international community
remains on IUU Fishing as a serious issue for the global fishing sector
that impacts negatively on safety, on environmental issues, on
conservation and on sustainability.
IUU fishing costs the global economy US$20 billion annually.
Marked gear would help authorities track illegal fishing activity and
bring criminals to justice.
It
is a global issue that is very difficult to monitor and police, and so
is one of the biggest obstacles to achieving sustainable fisheries.
IUU fishing equates to approximately 11-19% of reported global
fisheries production and leads to losses of roughly $10-23.5 billion in
value.
IUU fishing greatly impacts the livelihoods of small-scale
coastal fishing communities that depend on fisheries for food. It is
also associated with other crimes including human trafficking and other
human rights abuses.
The now freely available Code of Practice (PAS1550:2017)
and its implementation guide provide recommendations to the seafood
sector for determining whether fish products have been sourced in line
with IUU regulations, to identify and minimise the risk of IUU fishing
and to ensure decent working conditions and robust traceability of
seafood products from fishing boat to supermarket shelves.
OCEAN
AWARENESS
Overall, more awareness
and education needs to be provided to better communicate the
pervasiveness, danger and durability of ghost fishing equipment within
our oceans. With ghost nets dubbed the ‘silent killers’ of the sea, the
problem can only be addressed if governments come together on a
world-wide level and work collectively to reduce unnecessary marine-life
deaths. As of now, 16 governments have joined forces to achieve the
goals of the Global Ghost Gear Initiative. If more governments make a
commitment to carefully enforce strict rules and regulations to rid the
oceans of this marine litter, this would be a great step in helping to
establish much healthier oceans and safer marine life.
KULO
LUNA
'Kulo-Luna'
is a creative ocean and climate awareness campaign, designed to educated
viewers in a format that is generally acceptable book and film
entertainment.
Drowning
is one of the worst deaths imaginable. Leaving fishing nets floating in
the sea is tantamount to executing thousands of marine animals every
year. Condemning them to death. In the digital age, where data from
everyone with a mobile phone is being stolen and processed at every
purchase and surfing stop. For sure, tracking legal boats and catches,
is relative Childs play. The remaining catches, fish being sold over and
above that legally reported, is illegal. The seafood and the boats
should be confiscated as proceeds of crime. The same applied to boats
not reporting lost fishing nets. That is a crime, that if not reported,
is like failing to report an accident on the roads. An offence,
punishable with fishing bans and confiscation orders.
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