Stop menace of the seas

Stop menace of the seas

The new Fisheries Act is a sham. Our seas are in a critical situation from decades of bottom trawling which sweep clean the sea and annihilate the ocean floor. Yet, the new fisheries law continues to support this environmental disaster.

Research worldwide reaffirms that bottom trawling is the main cause of the rapid depletion of fish stocks and destruction of marine resources. All marine lives big and small are scooped up by trawlers' gigantic fine-mesh nets. Bottom trawling also destroys seabeds, coral and rocks which are fish habitats. Its destructive drag-nets also stir up up sediment, create oxygen-deficient dead zones, and algae blooms which further aggravate marine pollution and degradation.

Thailand is no exception. The Fisheries Department itself has conducted its own study on the impacts of trawlers. The findings are appalling. When trawlers started operating in Thai waters in 1961, the catch per hour was 300 kilogrammes. The catch declined drastically to 49kg per hour in 1982, 22kg in 1991 and 14kg in 2009.

The study also showed that only 30% of the catch had economic value. The rest are young fish and small marine animals. They should have been allowed to grow to sustain ocean health and fish stocks which is crucial to the country's food security. Instead they are treated as "trash fish" and sold as cheap ingredients to the animal feed industry.

Despite their glaring menace, this is what the new fisheries law has to say about trawlers: The fee for trawlers' nets is 500 baht per metre. 

This is a travesty.

Apart from turning a blind eye to bottom trawling, the new fisheries law also fails to prohibit other destructive fishing tools such as the use of fine-meshed nets and electric lights to catch young fish at night at the cost of the depletion of fish stocks. 

The old fisheries bill prohibited trawlers from entering protected coastal seas which stretch three kilometres from the shores. Authorities, however, failed miserably to enforce the law which severely affects the livelihoods of about 300,000 fishing families along the coasts. Instead of addressing this weakness, the new law does not mention protected coastal seas at all. 

According to the Fisheries Department, our waters cannot afford more than 5,000 trawlers. With the government's policy to give amnesty to illegal trawlers in response to the EU demand for better regulation of the fishery industry, the number of trawlers will rise to 12,000. Most will head home following Indonesia's trawlers ban. Without a law to protect the coastal zone, all hell will break loose.

Authorities may argue that the new fisheries law will give local communities more power to determine the size of protected areas and the types of fishing equipment allowed. This is deceptive at best.

The national and provincial fisheries committees are dominated by high-ranking bureaucrats and the business sector. Representatives from fishing communities are hugely outnumbered.

Even if they succeed in expanding protected areas and prohibiting trawlers and other destructive fishing methods, they have no tools nor authority to enforce them.

Meanwhile, trawler operators have nothing to fear. Apart from their long, close connections with law makers and provincial authorities, penalities are very light in the new fisheries law. Violent clashes could easily ensue when fishing communities try to protect their seas and sources of livelihoods. 

There is only one way to restore the degraded seas and prevent bloodshed. The government must outlaw trawlers and other environmentally destructive fishing methods. Only then can illegal fishing be tackled, the country spared trade boycotts, and the seas finally restored.

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