NAIROBI (Reuters) – Greenpeace has discovered the widespread use of illegal driftnets in the northwest Indian Ocean, said to be decimating marine life in what is one of the world’s most ecologically fragile fishing grounds.
During two weeks at sea, the environmental organization says it has filmed seven ships within a radius of 50 square kilometers using drift nets to catch tuna. It detected eight more ships on the radar using navigation patterns that also suggested the use of nets.
“If yellowfin tuna continues to decline at the current rate, food security in the region and local economies will be hit hard,” said Greenpeace.
Nicknamed the “walls of death” because of the amount of other marine life they catch in addition to the fish for which they were released, the nets were banned by the United Nations 30 years ago.
Greenpeace shared with Reuters images of sharks and manta rays killed in the nets some 500 miles east of Somalia. “Because of the by-catch problems, we are concerned about all the fish in the Indian Ocean,” he said, adding that the same area had also seen a huge increase in unregulated squid fishing.
“What’s the point of a UN ban on driftnets if all the fishing vessels we saw use driftnets?” Will McCallum, Greenpeace UK’s head of the oceans, asked in a comment to Reuters.
“There is little to no enforcement in international waters … We need a global ocean treaty … to resolve this huge governance gap.”
Nations will meet in August to negotiate such a pact, designed to try to establish safeguards for parts of the ocean comparable to land-based reserves.
Last month, representatives from 30 countries gathered to discuss ways to save the rapidly depleted Indian Ocean tuna stocks. The meeting ended without a new agreement.
Reporting by Katharine Houreld and Maggie Fick; edited by John Stonestreet