UN Vote Urges Fishing Limits to Protect Turtles
Date: 29-Nov-05
Country: WORLD
Author: Irwin Arieff
A resolution adopted by consensus by the 191-nation assembly is aimed at restricting a form of industrial fishing known as longline fishing.
It is used by large fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean that trail lines studded with hooks that can stretch out as long as 60 miles (100 km) behind them, snaring millions of sea turtles and birds along with the fish they intend to catch.
The resolution calls for urgent implementation of measures set out in UN Food and Agriculture Organization guidelines intended to reduce such incidental sea turtle and bird deaths.
The measures include closing some fishing areas on a seasonal or continuous basis as well as restricting particular types of fishing equipment.
But they fall short of the moratorium on longline fishing sought by more than 1,000 scientists from 97 countries in a letter delivered to UN delegates in May.
Longline fishing is practiced by vessels from many nations including the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Spain and other Asian and Latin American nations.
The value of its take at dockside is estimated at $4 billion to $5 billion a year.
Tuna and swordfish are longline fishing's most common targets, but the lines also snag as many as 4.4 million sea turtles, bullfish, sharks, marine mammals and seabirds every year, according to a study of the practice conducted by Robert Ovetz of the California-based Sea Turtle Restoration Project.
One of the hardest-hit creatures is the migratory leatherback sea turtle, whose numbers in the Pacific have declined by 95 percent since 1980, according to Ovetz.
Scientists warn the leatherback could disappear in the next five to 30 years unless fishing techniques are altered.
Ovetz hailed the UN vote as a good first step. But a moratorium "would give us the time to put proven conservation measures into place to keep the leatherback from dropping off into oblivion forever," he added in a statement.
