Ali Mohsen, an Egyptian mariner, tells good story about his childhood days when the sea was so full of fish that one could simply dangle a hand net over the side of the boat and pull up a seafood dinner. But at present, his crew spent hours out at sea with only four kilos of small fish to show for it. He informed that fishmongers in this Mediterranean port city sell sardine-sized fish belonging to a species that grows to two kilos when allowed to mature.
Mohsen explained how poachers use nylon mist nets known locally as “el-shabah” (the phantom) to catch even the smallest fish, including fingerlings. He told that the market buyers are not interested in buying small fish. If anyone catch baby fish, they’re not worth much, but it will keep them from growing to be adult fish and reproducing to make more fish, says Mohsen.
According to the General Authority for Fisheries Resources Development (GAFRD), the state agency responsible for managing Egypt’s fisheries, Mediterranean fishermen landed 81,000 tonnes of finfish in 2009, a 10 percent decrease from the previous year. Unpublished reports indicate the 2010 catch was even lower. Diminishing returns have given fishermen more incentive to use illegal and destructive techniques to maintain their meagre incomes.
Catching poachers is extremely difficult. While Mediterranean ports are tightly controlled, the vast expanse of sea that buttresses Egypt’s northern coast is beyond police purview. Marine biologist Alaa El-Haweet, a GAFRD consultant, said that authorities only control the landing area and there is no control out at sea, or in the market… so fishermen can basically catch as much as they want, wherever they want.
