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ENVIRONMENT: Ban Urged on Indiscriminate Long-Line Fishing

Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 9 2005 (IPS) - International environmental groups are calling on the United Nations to impose a moratorium on industrial long-line fishing, which indiscriminately kills sea turtles and other species whose existence is considered a vital factor in the sustainability of ocean ecosystems.

Their call comes at a time when government officials from around the world are attending a week-long U.N.-sponsored Law of the Sea meeting that began here on Jun. 6. The meeting is likely to consider a plan of action proposed by Costa Rica to protect sea turtles and other species.

The action plan calls for a ban on industrial fishing on the high seas until sea turtles and other species are no longer threatened with extinction.

Long-line fishing is a commercial device that uses thousands of baited hooks hanging from a single line.

Costa Rica’s recommendation to the U.N. is the outcome of efforts by more than 1,000 scientists from nearly 100 countries and over 280 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) representing millions of people who have signed a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan in support of a moratorium on industrial fishing in the Pacific.

"The oceans are in a deep crisis," said Robert Ovetz of the Sea Turtle Restoration Project, a U.S.-based group campaigning to protect endangered species, at a news conference earlier this week. "One of the biggest threats to high-seas biodiversity is industrial long-line fishing."

Those campaigning against industrial fishing say they are not seeking to permanently shut down commercial fishing, but to create a world where species like whales, sea turtles and humans can co-exist.

"Local communities should be allowed to fish, as should recreational fishers," Todd Steiner, executive director of the Project, told reporters.

Demanding certain limits on the capacity of industrial fishing, he noted that recreational fishing generates more revenue than long-line fishing. In Hawaii, for instance, long-line fishing earns about 15 million dollars a year, while recreational fishing brings in 150 million to 250 million dollars a year.

Steiner said he and his colleagues had contacts within the industry, but added it "doesn’t want to hear the issues." "It is an industry which is raping and pillaging the oceans, while losing money," he added.

Steiner said that every year, more than four million creatures are killed by long-lines, including three million sharks, about 50,000 sea turtles and hundreds of thousands of sea birds.

Scientists believe sea turtles have lived on Earth for 150 million years, since before the time of the dinosaurs. Named by some marine life experts as "ambassadors of the oceans," sea turtles are divided into seven species, all of them endangered and protected under various national laws and international treaties.

Although they spend most of their time in the water, sea turtles head for land to reproduce, depositing their eggs on tropical and subtropical sandy beaches. Researchers say the interaction between humans and sea turtles spans thousands of years, observing that coastal people in many part of the world continue to attach great spiritual, religious and economic value to the existence of sea turtles.

The indigenous people of North America, the island people of Papua New Guinea and those from the ancient Indian culture continue to believe in the myth that Mother Earth rests on the back of a giant sea turtle.

Pacific leatherback turtles are dying at a rate of 20 percent per year, according to Jim Spitola, an environmental science professor at Drexel University, who estimates that sea turtles in the Pacific Ocean have at least a 65 percent chance of getting caught on long-lines every year.

In addition to demanding a moratorium on industrial fishing, marine scientists and environmental NGOs are also voicing concern over governments’ failure to reduce human-produced ocean noise, which causes mass stranding and deaths of whales and dolphins.

"It is a huge problem," says Yolanda Alaniz of the Conservacion de Memiferos Marinos de Mexico, about the impact of underwater noise. "It creates not only environmental but economic and social problems because local communities depend on fishing."

The underwater noise is mainly caused by the high-powered industrial "air guns" used for oil and gas exploration and "active sonar" increasingly utilised by the navies of several nations. They produce a level of noise which is estimated to be 10 billion times more than even humans can safely tolerate.

Studies on affected animals reveal hemorrhaging around the brain, lungs and auditory organs – the highly sensitive tissues that allow cetaceans to communicate, find food, locate offspring, avoid ships and navigate the open seas.

Last year, the European Parliament and the International Whaling Commission recognised underwater noise as a threat to marine life and urged other nations to develop methods for its control.

Currently, Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Britain, Costa Rica, and Trinidad and Tobago are endorsing the move to limit ocean noise. However, many countries, including the United States, France and other, continue to justify the existing practises for a variety of reasons.

The United States, for example, has declared that the use of naval sonar is a matter of national security and therefore not subject to negotiation, a position that has disappointed the environmental community.

"It’s very upsetting to us," says Marsha Green, a scientist associated with the Sierra Club, an influential environmental group in the United States. "The U.N. should take the lead in addressing this issue."