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For even one dolphin to die, lingeringly, struggling,
in a drift net not even meant for it, is an obscenity.
In 1989, the United Nations agreed to ban large-scale
high seas drift nets. Why then, nine years on, are
European fishermen still using them?
Samantha Holliday reports.
Picture the immense diversity of marine life that would be contained within 100 square miles of open ocean. Now imagine, in one fell swoop, all of this is destroyed for the sake of harvesting one species. This is the story of drift nets: an extreme manifestation of the modern, highly competitive fishing industry. Developed out of a desire to secure ever-increasing profit margins, drift nets have proved to be one of the most destructive fishing practices of our time.
Traditionally, small drift nets made of cotton were used by coastal communities to catch dense schools of fish, such as herring or sprat. Floats would be attached to the top of the nets, and weights attached to the bottom. They would then be allowed to drift passively in the water and catch any fish that swam into them. Following technological advances in the production of synthetic materials in the 1970s, the scale of drift-net fisheries dramatically changed.
This new netting was barely visible once in the water, but strong enough to endure the rigours of the open seas.
This not only led to their widespread use, but also resulted in a dramatic increase in the size of the nets, with many stretching as far as 50km.
During the Eighties, approximately 50,000km of nets were being cast into the oceans every night. They came to be known as the 'walls of death', catching everything in their path and playing havoc with the ecology and natural harmony of the marine world. Hundreds of thousands of dolphins, whales, turtles and birds are estimated to have been killed every year by these nets, as well as an unquantifiable amount of non-target fish species.
Under much pressure from conservationists, the United Nations finally agreed in 1989 to ban drift nets. Since the ban came into effect in 1992, large-scale high seas drift nets have almost disappeared from our seas.
You would therefore be forgiven for thinking that the subject is now closed, that drift-nets are no longer a threat to marine life, that they are no longer responsible for the deaths of thousands of marine mammals and birds every year. In some parts of the world, however, drift netting continues. The troubled waters in which drift netting continues include the North-East Atlantic and the Mediterranean and many of the countries responsible for this ongoing ecological destruction belong to the European Union.
Following the United Nations ban, the European Union implemented its own legislation limiting the length of drift nets in European waters to 2.5km. The main nations affected by this legislation were Italy, France, Ireland and the UK. Unfortunately, the lack of monitoring of fisheries practices has meant that in some areas this regulation has been flouted. Furthermore, studies carried out by both France and the UK have shown that, even where the 2.5km limit has been adhered to, the level of bycatch of non-target species has been far higher than anticipated.
The worse case of non-enforcement occurs in the Mediterranean, which now suffers the effects of more large-scale high seas drift nets than any other ocean in the world. Most of these belong to Italian drift-netters, fishing almost exclusively for swordfish. Almost 700 Italian vessels use drift nets. It is reported that many of these are illegal and up to 20km in length, the average net length being 12.5km. More than 8,000 whales and dolphins are thought to die in these nets every year.
Attempts to lessen the impact of drift netting have been marred by the Italian Government's apparent lack of commitment to enforcing European Law. The International Whaling Commission expressed its concern, in 1994, that the Mediterranean striped dolphin population might not be able to sustain the numbers being killed by nets. In spite of this, the Italian Fisheries Minister called for the length of drift nets to be officially extended to 9km.
Frustrated by the inability of the EU to control the use of drift-nets in the Mediterranean, a consortium of conservation groups decided to take a new line of action: in 1995, they took the US government to court to ensure that it upheld its own legislation, which places economic sanctions on any country seen not to be abiding by UN Resolutions.
The conservation groups won their legal battle and, in March 1996, the US issued the Italian authorities with a threat of trade sanctions unless they enforced the ban on large-scale drift nets.
The Italian Government has since promised to eliminate drift nets from the Italian fishing fleet. The plan, which has now been formalised through the EU, is for all vessels to be decommissioned, or converted to other methods of fishing.
This may be a major breakthrough in marine conservation, but the scheme has sparked little interest among Italian fishermen. Moreover, rumours abound that Italian drift nets are already being sold on to fishermen in non-EU countries, such as Turkey and parts of Africa, where the will and ability to enforce conservation measures is even weaker than in the EU.
France and Britain's track records are a little better than Italy's, but even where these two countries have abided by the EU Resolution (and they haven't taken it too seriously), drift nets have proved to be a terrible threat to wildlife. Both France and the UK use drift nets for albacore tuna in the North-East Atlantic, which led to the vicious 'tuna wars' back in 1994.
France was the first country to introduce drift nets into the albacore fishery in 1987. When the 2.5km rule came into play five years later, the EU allowed French drift-netters to fish with 5km nets until the end of 1993. This had the potential to be extended if it could be demonstrated that 5km drift nets posed no ecological risk to the marine environment. French officials thus monitored the fishery during this period but found that, contrary to the fishing industry's beliefs, a huge bycatch of non-target species still occurred. Indeed, the French nets caught 48 non-target species, including six types of shark, five types of whale, four types of dolphin, leatherback and loggerhead turtles, puffins and fulmars. Analysis of the results indicated that the striped dolphin, already at risk in the Mediterranean, might not be able to survive such high levels of mortality in the North-East Atlantic.
A similar study carried out in 1995, on UK boats using 2.5km nets, revealed an even higher rate of dolphin bycatch, indicating that a net restriction was simply not enough to prevent ecological risk to dolphins and other wildlife.
In the Spring of 1994 the European Commission proposed new legislation for a European ban on drift nets of any length by the end of 1997. The Commission stated, 'The allowing of nets up to 2.5km long has to be seriously questioned. First of all, it is a cardinal factor in fraud. Secondly, it is an avenue through which the use of drift-nets can be expanded.'
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