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High Seas Driftnet Fishing - Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing
September, 2006
High seas driftnet fishing - the practice of targeting valuable species such as salmon, Albacore tuna and squid using nets anywhere from 2.5 to 40 kilometres in length - represents one of the most serious forms of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the North Pacific. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, large fleets of High Seas Driftnet (HSDN) vessels openly operated in this area. Gradually, evidence mounted that such large-scale pelagic (open sea) driftnetting had serious environmental impacts including:
- a destructive effect on the biomass of targeted species;
- substantial bycatch of seabirds and marine mammals;
- a high "dropout" rate of fish that are caught and die but slip free before being harvested; and
- the risk of "ghost" fishing from unrecovered nets that fill with fish and mammals, sink from the weight, then resurface to repeat the process.
In response to these environmental concerns, the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in 1992 passed Resolution 46/215 creating an international moratorium on large-scale HSDN fishing, to take effect January 1, 1993. At the same time, Canada, the United States, Russia and Japan signed the Convention for the Conservation of Anadromous Stocks in the North Pacific Ocean. South Korea joined in 2003. The Convention prohibits fishing on the high seas with driftnets exceeding 2.5 km. China, although not a signatory to the Convention, has established an agreement with the United States allowing Chinese enforcement officers to conduct operations aboard U.S. Coast Guard vessels.
(Anadromous fish are species like salmon that are born in freshwater, migrate to the sea where they grow into adults and then return to fresh water to spawn. These species include chum, pink, sockeye, chinook, coho and cherry salmon, as well as steelhead trout.)
The term
IUU fishing describes a wide range of destructive fishing activities. Many maritime nations, including Canada, have undertaken to monitor and deter IUU fishing, and protect shared fish resources.
IUU fishing is viewed widely as one of the main obstacles to sustainable world fisheries and healthy oceans ecosystems. Estimated to be 30 per cent or more of the world's total catch, IUU fishing directly undermines the management efforts of responsible fishing nations. Canada has actively pursued co-operative, international efforts to address this problem.
Operation Driftnet is one such activity; membership in the High Seas Task Force on IUU Fishing along with the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Namibia, the World Wildlife Fund, and the World Conservation Union is another. These and other efforts are part of Canada's strategy to combat global overfishing and improve the way the world's fish stocks are managed.
Since 1992, Canada has enforced the UN moratorium on illegal fishing operations through joint operations with the Department of National Defence and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. In 2001, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization prohibited driftnet fishing on the high seas.
The 14
th annual meeting of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission will be held in Vancouver, B.C., October 23-27, 2006.
For more information on Canada's overfishing strategy, visit
www.overfishing.gc.ca.
B-HQ-06-35E(b)
Date Modified: 2006-09-29
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Not only the north Pacific but all the way down to the tip of Chile.
This is what caused the enviro problems we have to live with today.....this and the US government dumping barrels of ddt off the Ca. coast.