Falklands : The ACAP Workshop: An Outsider's View
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 21.03.2006 (Article Archived on 04.04.2006)
Now its up to the authorities in charge of anti-poaching measures to act upon recommendations that will come out of this vital workshop.
Photo (c) Norman Glass - Thousands of seabirds follow fishing ships and seem to be determined to be a statistic.
THE ACAP WORKSHOP: AN OUTSIDER’S VIEW
Thousands of seabirds following one fishing ship
An Editorial by J. Brock (FINN)
The ACAP Workshop sponsored by the Overseas Territories Environmental Programme (OTEP), the Falkland Islands Government, Birdlife International and Falklands Conservation successfully concluded last Wednesday with most members flying out on Thursday. Conclusions coming out of the workshop are as yet not published but it is known that members of the workshop came down heavy on IUU fishing and its affects on unreported seabird deaths.
On 15 August 2003 SARTMA published an article entitled: “The Unseen Consequence of Long-line Poaching,” where it was pointed out that people who steal fish would not be reporting seabird mortality to anyone. Someone in the environmental community must have picked up on this because it was apparent, from the comments made by delegates, that IUU fishing in relation to seabird deaths was discussed.
Also discussed was seabird behaviour itself. It seems that some seabirds can dive as far as 6 metres (perhaps more) below the ocean’s surface to retrieve fish and, unfortunately, baited hooks.
One might wonder why mitigation measures are not used to stop this. Indeed, In the Falklands Conservation Zone and the Maritime Zone around South Georgia, mitigation measures have made seabird deaths miniscule. Fisheries at Tristan Da Cunha, St. Helena and Ascension Island do not have the luxury of funding for these measures to the extent they have in the Falklands and in South Georgia. Increasingly, seabird deaths result.
IUU fishing has a lot to answer for when it comes to the lack of money for funding mitigation measures in the island fisheries north of South Georgia. Valuable stocks of lobster from Tristan Da Cunha as well as Tuna from St. Helena and Ascension Island are stolen by people who have no regard for the state of the economies they are filching.
It is hoped that genetic profiling and other methods of identifying where fish is caught can be afforded by fisheries badly affected by poaching. Something must be done now before the fish and the birds that feed on them are a thing of the past.
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