Destructive Fishing Practices

Explosive Fishing

One of the worst is explosive fishing.. its mainly takes place in Tanzania, the Philippines, and Indonesia. It is a very illegal practice that harms unnecessary marine life and often harms marine habitats and surroundings like coral reefs.

The Issue?

Potential Ramifications

Destructive fishing techniques are such a big issue because of how they affect the environment, the fish populations, and the food chain.

Destructive fishing is a global issue, and

has many methods and practices.

Well basically there could be a huge collapse in the food chain because of the over fishing of key stone species... because money is more important than the survival of ocean eco systems right?

Ghost Fishing

We are already seeing problems right now.. because many of the bigger predatory marine fish have been over fished to the point where they can't be fished any longer. So now our industries have moved onto smaller fish with bigger populations.

Causes of the problem

Ghost fishing isn't necessarily people purposefully trying to catch fish or bigger marine life.. but it's still our fault. It's when lost netting off of fishing boats or shores go astray and tangle up helpless marine life essentially killing them if they aren't saved.

It has became a problem because over the years our fishing industry has effectively over fished many of the species that were popular... so in desperation many fishing industries all over the world have dropped to desperate measures to bring in their catch. It has been an issue since people went from rod and reel to large scale industrial netting and big boats... so a long time.

Bottom Trawling

Cyanide Fishing

The practice of Cyanide Fishing is used in order to stun fish for easy capture. Often it is used to catch fish for aquariams.

Bottom Trawling is an industrial fishing method where a large net with heavy weights is pulled across the ocean floor initially scooping up everything in its path, targeted and non-targeted fish and other marine life, including parts of coral reefs.

My Opinion

Driftnet Fishing

Possible Solutions

The issue should most definitely be addressed on a global level.. it might need to be something that starts out smaller and works its way up to a global level of revision.

As of right now there doesn't really seem to be too much being done about the issue, or anything really in effect.

But there are some concepts for us to look at that could have the potential to fix over fishing.. such as

Driftnetting is a commercial practice used all over the world. It is a practice that involves the catch of a lot of non-target individuals.

There aren't really a whole lot of ''proposals'' but more like steps that we need to take.

1. safe catch Limits- A scientific limit on how much fish fisheries can take in yearly around the world.

2. Control on Bycatch- rules to prevent the unintentional killing of marine life not targeted for catch.

3. Protection of Pristine and Important habitats- spawning grounds, sea floor, coral reefs, unexplored habitats, key eco systems

4. Monitoring and Enforcement- a system to monitor and ensure that large scale and local fisheries do not land more than necessary. WITH STRONG ENFORCEMENT!!!

Well I don't think I could really come up with a real proposal to stop over fishing because its such a big and globally wide issue.. but maybe we could come up with a way to have large scale salt water habitats away from the ocean that raised fish species we need while we leave the ocean to return to its ideally safe condition and then have regulated rules for fishing, like the ones on the previous slide.

Destructive Fishing Practices