Govt Plans Survey To Gauge Fish Stocksff
5 January 2009
Pakistan
Written by Shahid Shah
Pakistan is about to start a much-awaited survey of its marine fisheries resources this month after a gap of nearly 30 years in a bid to get a clear picture of fish stocks.
â€No survey of fish stocks has been conducted in the Exclusive Economic Zone
(EEZ) of Pakistan for 28 years. I think fish stocks have declined by 75 per cent,†says a fisherman with more than 40 years in the business.
The Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) will launch the fish stock survey in the EEZ in mid-January. Pakistan declared its EEZ beyond territorial waters up to 200 nautical miles.
The EEZ covers an area of 196,600sq km and the territorial waters cover 24,000km. Under the 1995 UN Fish Stocks Agreement, both state and sub-regional or regional fisheries management organizations are obliged to cooperate in order to ensure effective conservation and management of fish stocks.
The government is starting the Rs495 million a self-funded survey with the technical assistance of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The project would take two years to complete.
Stock Assessment Survey Program Project Director Muhammad Wasim Khan told The News an awareness campaign would be launched along with the survey on January 14. Khan hoped Pakistan’s resources would not show that level of degradation, which people believed.
According to the FAO, out of 600 marine fish stocks monitored by the organization, three per cent are underexploited, 20 per cent moderately exploited, 52 per cent fully exploited, 17 per cent overexploited, 7 per cent depleted and 1 per cent recovering from depletion.
â€The FAO does not have any particular observation of Pakistani waters,†said Khan. Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF) Chairman Mohammad Ali Shah said their local survey showed a decline of 75 per cent in marine resources.
During the exercise, information was collected from fishermen, survey of boats and fish catch in the last 30 years. Pakistan is not only country that faces a decline in fish stocks and it is a global issue.
Catch of tuna fish and black paplet has declined by 50 per cent.
Motani said before 80s, smaller boats were used with small nets, which returned to shore fully loaded within seven days, now the bigger fish boats with almost double size of the net spend two weeks and return with fewer catch.
Use of harmful nets, overfishing, and industrial pollution are the main reasons of decline in the fish resources, the PFF chairman said. Elders said when all food stocks of the world would come to an end, said Shah, it would be marine resources that would provide food.
But, “we are proving this very wrong,†he said, by endangering the fish stocks. He said the government was celebrating 2009 as environment year so it must give importance to the marine ecology and life.
