As much as 12 million tonnes of plastic are estimated to be entering the oceans every year. Europêche members, aware of the problem, are increasingly involved in environmental schemes to help combat the growing spread of marine litter and encourage fishermen across Europe to participate in recycling and clean up initiatives.
There are many factors that have contributed to a rise in marine litter over the last twenty years, including a significant increase in plastic production, poor waste management and the general public’s attitudes towards littering.
However, the problem is accentuated in other parts of the world, since a recent scientific report revealed that 88-95% of the global load into sea comes from eight Asian and two African rivers, acting as a major transport pathways for plastic debris.
This has major implications for human health, marine ecosystems and maritime economic activities. The European Commission estimates that the economic damage to EU fishermen ranges between €60 million and €300 million per year.
640.000 tonnes of fishing gear is thought to be lost or abandoned in the oceans every year, making up less than 10% of all marine litter. Some of these lost fishing gears continue catching fish even if not man-operated, a phenomenon known as ghost fishing.
Europêche argues that these figures are not new since they come from a very old FAO report based on non-comprehensive information that does not allow for any global estimates, as recognised by the report’s authors.
These figures, therefore, do not reflect the current situation, at least in the EU.
‘In the EU we have a completely different picture. For instance, while FAO will only adopt voluntary guidelines on marking fishing gear in July this year; in the EU it is mandatory for fishermen since 2009 to mark and identify their gears, have adequate equipment on board to retrieve lost gears and immediately inform coastal authorities in case of loss,’ said Europêche President Javier Garat.
‘I know enough examples of fishermen looking for their damaged or lost nets for three days at sea since a set of gear can cost up to €50.000. Most nets are not deliberately discarded. The problem is that there are 40-50 year old gears at sea only being recovered nowadays.’
Apart from the strong European regulatory framework, fishermen are voluntarily participating in several programmes across the EU not only to better take care and recycle the garbage produced on board but also to bring ashore derelict fishing gear and passively fished waste,.
‘Our fishing companies are also collaborating with universities in order to improve the tagging of fishing gears and enhancing on board best-practices to promote waste free fisheries as well as developing biodegradable materials and using non-entangling fishing aggregated devices (FADs),’ Javier Garat commented.
‘Fishermen are extremely involved in such innovative initiatives to prevent, recover, reuse and recycle of fishing gears. As an example, thanks to their partnership with KIMO, over 500 fishing vessels landed 2500 tonnes of waste from the sea between 2011-2016 which will no longer be affecting the marine environment, let alone the economic activities, and are recycled into new valuable products.’
As a result of the new Directive on Port Reception Facilities proposed by the European Commission in January this year, the EU plans to require all fishing vessels to pay a fee to the port or harbour irrespective of whether they deliver any waste or not.
‘Fisheries is part of the solution as our trawlers mostly clean up other people’s waste and the EU should continue incentivising these good practices. The introduction of a discriminatory fee for fishermen for waste they do not generate is not the way to motivate the industry in continuing with the good work in combating this global problem,’ Javier Garat concluded.
