How bottom trawling has destroyed Thailand's marine ecosystems

[buksida]

In Thailand, bottom trawling threatens livelihoods, food security and ocean ecosystems. One particularly destructive form of bottom trawling, known as pair trawling, is responsible for catching vast amounts of juvenile fish and seafood which would otherwise have reached maturity as valuable species; urgent action is needed to reform fisheries now, says the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF).

In the waters around Thailand, fish populations are rapidly declining, with serious impacts for fishers in the country. The catch per unit effort – a measure of the fish caught for a given amount of fishing time – has fallen by almost 85% in the Andaman Sea and over 93% in the Gulf of Thailand.

Bottom trawling, where large nets are dragged on the bottom of the sea, is likely to have significantly contributed to this decline. Of Thailand’s 10,595 commercial fishing vessels, trawlers make up just a third of the numbers but over 50% of the catch – weighing approximately 560,000 tonnes in 2021.

“Thailand’s fish populations are being devastated by a small, unregulated portion of its commercial fleet. Destructive and uncontrolled bottom trawling is wiping out the ocean ecosystems that support livelihoods and food security across Thailand, in a short-term grab for profit at far greater longer-term costs for everyone and the environment,” said Steve Trent, EJF CEO and Co-Founder.

Almost half of the catch is now so-called ‘trash fish’ – near-worthless catch which is not suitable for human consumption, a mixture of heavily degraded marine life caught at the back of the trawl net. Much of what is sold as trash fish is made up of juveniles of species that would have been highly valuable had they been able to mature. Therefore, every kilogram of trash fish sold by commercial trawlers is robbing Thai fishers in the future to pay them a pittance today, while at the same time destroying the ecological security of marine life.

https://www.thaienquirer.com/47915/envi ... ew-report/

[Dannie Boy]

Seems so typical of what’s happening in many parts of the world, not just Thailand - they are completely shortsighted, nobody cares about tomorrow only today!!

[buksida]

Money and short-term profits come first, and that is more of an Asian way of approaching things. There are regulations against certain fishing practices here, but as usual, the web of corruption results in the enforcers turning a blind eye for a brown envelope.