By Alexia Saoulli
THE LARNACA Fishermen’s Organisation yesterday warned the ecosystem was heading for disaster due to excessive tuna and swordfish fishing by foreign fishing trawlers.
Using high-tech equipment, Italian, French and Spanish fishermen have started catching hundreds of tonnes of tuna and swordfish in eastern Mediterranean waters, Petros Andrianou told the Cyprus Mail. This is the first time the foreign fishermen have muscled in on locals’ traditional territory, he said.
During this period, these fish travel towards Cyprus, where the water is warmer, in order to lay their eggs, he said. “So there are schools of 100-600 kilo fish in the area,” he pointed out, “which they want to catch.”
Andrianou said unlike Cypriot fishermen who used “correct methods” to catch tuna and sword fish, which did not affect the ecosystem, foreign fishing ships used large nets and sophisticated tracking devices.
“When we go fishing we throw about 500 baited hooks into the water and wait for the fish to bite. Up until now each fishing boat would maybe catch an average of five fish a day using this method,” he said. Five fish, weighing 20-50 kilos each, were enough for a family to survive well. “Now we throw in our hooks and are lucky to catch one fish.”
The problem is local fishermen are unable to compete with the modern, high tech foreign fishing trawlers.
“They use new technology involving satellites and planes and helicopters to track the fish. Then they come here and drop water from the planes and trick the fish into thinking it’s food from above and so they rise to surface to feed. However, instead, their fishing ships are waiting, with huge six mile long nets that they used to circle the entire school of fish, and lift them all out of the water,” said Andrianou. “Not one manages to get away.”
He said two French and one Spanish ship had recently sailed into Larnaca harbour with 380 tonnes of large fish, which they’d caught over four days. The catch is then exported abroad, particularly to Japan where tuna is an expensive delicacy.
“The way they work really worries us. It’s unorthodox and if it continues for two or three years it will affect the ecosystem because not only do they catch tuna and swordfish using this method of fishing, but also whales.”
Andrianou said we were looking at an ecological disaster waiting to happen. “Small fish will start to grow into large fish, because there will be no fish to eat them.”
But the government cannot stop foreigners from fishing tuna in the Mediterranean, an industry source, who wished to remain anonymous, said yesterday.
“There’s nothing that can be done, because these fishermen are fishing in international waters, and do not need another country’s permission to do so,” he said.
“Until now our fishermen had no competitors in the tuna and swordfish market. Now that they are losing money, it has become a problem that is not easy to solve.”
Tuna is primarily exported to Japan, where it can fetch $100 per kilo. But locals are losing out on this profitable business because the French and Spaniards have better fishing boats. The only way for fishermen to compete is if they buy ships and equipment that match those of the foreigners.
“But they are very costly and not worth the expense for only three months,” he said. French and Spanish companies on the other hand are huge enterprises that also fish in the Atlantic, and so can spend the extra money.
Nevertheless, Andrianou said he hoped the foreign fishing ships would adhere to EU regulations forbidding such methods during the entire month of June, when the fish eggs were hatching, while allowing traditional methods of fishing to continue.
The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.
