The main reason behind the ban of deepwater set gillnets is to establish a regional fisheries management organization that will have legally-binding control over fishing in the South Pacific Ocean. It is true that deepwater gillnets impact heavily on vulnerable species such as sharks, many of them already in marked decline through overfishing. ON top of that “ghost fishing”, caused through lost or discarded fishing gear continuing to catch fish that are never landed.
South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) has expressed its deep concern over a claim by Spain that two of its vessels, which had been setting deepwater gillnets up to 2 km underwater in seas off Australia’s Lord Howe Island and elsewhere did not present a serious impact on vulnerable marine ecosystems (VMEs).
Last week Australia had confiscated a huge 130 km long gillnet set 1.5 km deep in Antarctic waters in the south-western Indian Ocean where the use of such nets is already banned, and proposed a ban on their use in the South Pacific also. Glenn Sant, TRAFFIC’s Global Marine Programme Leader, said that there is a need to see more championing of conservation issues out onto the high seas; it is precisely what we expect from responsible fisheries management, and a ban would represent a welcome start for this newly created fisheries management body.
