Scientists Find Evidence of Illegal Fishing in Southern Ocean
20.05.2010 - Water & Oceans, Flora & Fauna, Antarctic
Scientists investigating deep sea life in the Southern Ocean near eastern Antarctica have found evidence of what they believe could be illegal fishing. Using an experimental “benthic trawl” modified to carry a camera, they found a series of long straight furrows, which could be marks left by bottom longlines set to catch patagonian toothfish.
However the area of Bruce Rise is closed to fishing under the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), signed by 32 nations with the goal of conserving marine life of the Southern Ocean. The evidence the scientists found indicates an intensive illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing campaign in an area protected under CCAMLR.
A key focus for CCAMLR is the management of illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing within its jurisdiction, a major cause of pressure on toothfish stocks and seabird populations in the Southern Ocean. In the 1996-97 fishing season, CCAMLR estimated that 72.4 % of the total toothfish catch came from IUU fisheries. The illegal catch was still 10.2 % in the 2007-08 season. The information from Dr Constable's benthic trawl project will be presented to CCAMLR for consideration.
One of the challenges at hand now for the CCAMLR is to find out how the closed and open areas function and how to manage them in the future. Unlike other fisheries, CCAMLR seeks the preservation of all the species in the ecosystem, which includes the benthic fauna that sit on the seabed and the fauna that live inside the sediments.
