How the Mediterranean is turning into a dead and barren sea
Pastor Dale Morgan
How the Mediterranean is turning into a dead and barren sea*
Sinikka Tarvainen | Madrid, Spain
31 October 2006 11:59
For millennia, the Mediterranean has fed its coastal peoples with
abundant fish, but now it threatens to become a dead and barren sea.
Overfishing is taking a heavy toll on fish stocks, with the numbers of
tuna plummeting and anchovy becoming scarce in the western Mediterranean.
"Many species are becoming increasingly rare," says Alain Bonzon,
secretary general of a commission monitoring fishing in the Mediterranean.
The problem is visible not only in the Mediterranean, but also in
Spain's Atlantic and Cantabrian fishing grounds. "We are catching less
and less fish," observes fisherman Emilio Louro from the north-western
Galicia region.
"Our income is shrinking, young people are leaving, the village is
becoming a place of old people," he told the daily El Pais.
Louro realises that overfishing puts the livelihood of thousands of
fishermen in danger, but not everyone is that smart.
Many small fishing companies are waging a desperate battle against
large, sometimes multinational ones that see the sea only as a source of
money.
The number of fishermen has halved to about 50 000 since 1990 in Spain,
which has the largest fishing fleet in the European Union. At the same
time, improved technology has increased the size of catches, leading to
an unscrupulous pillage of the sea's resources.
Many Spanish and French fishing companies have used EU subsidies to
overhaul their fleets, installing sonar systems and new engines. Fishing
boats may have engines four times as powerful as the law allows them to
have in the Mediterranean, according to El Pais.
They also use banned gear such as drift nets, which haul up vast
quantities of unwanted fish and other marine life, and target juvenile
fish despite size restrictions.
Large companies even use radar and spotter planes to track down schools
of bluefin tuna, the consumption of which has been fuelled by the growth
of the global sushi market.
Tuna are fattened in special ranches around the Mediterranean for the
Japanese market, and taken away by Asian ships that pick up the cargo
off shore without informing the authorities, according to media reports.
About 45 000 metric tonnes of bluefin tuna are captured annually in the
Mediterranean and Atlantic, more than three times as much as what
experts consider a sustainable amount.
"If this goes on, new generations will see bluefin tuna only in
photographs," says Jose Luis Cort, of the Oceanographic Institute in the
northern city of Santander.
The consequences of overfishing could be tragic for other species as
well. Last spring's catch of anchovy from the Gulf of Biscay, for
instance, amounted to 1 080 metric tonnes, compared with up to 72 000
tons in the 1960s.
Other endangered species include hake, swordfish, red mullet and cod.
The results of overfishing are becoming visible in the rapid increase of
jellyfish off touristic beaches in the Mediterranean. The phenomenon has
been attributed to the animals now having less predators and competitors.
Environmentalists blame lax European government enforcement, while
European officials say regulations are insufficient and fishing a
difficult activity to monitor.
The environmental group Greenpeace believes the Mediterranean can only
be saved from overfishing, industrial waste and oil spills by turning
40% of it into marine reserves. -- Sapa-dpa