GENERAL SANTOS CITY (MindaNews / 4 September) – Various groups have reiterated their call for the regulation of fish aggregating devices (FADs) in the Philippines to ensure the sustainability of the handline fishing sector, which produces large mature fresh tuna stocks sold in the domestic and foreign sashimi market.
Unregulated FADs by purse seine fishing will lead to the eventual collapse of the tuna industry, asserted the group, whose representatives gathered here for the 16th National Tuna Congress (NTC).
The two-day NTC that openedThursday carries the theme “Shared Resources, Shared Responsibility.”
In a statement, Greenpeace blamed the FADs put up by purse seine fishers to the massive decline in bigeye and yellowfin tuna stocks in the Pacific Ocean.
Bigeye tuna is one of the most valuable tuna species regularly caught in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean and fetch a high price in the sashimi market.
Bigeye tuna overfishing is partly attributed to the failure to manage tuna purse seine fishing associated with FADs-buoys or rafts that drift or are anchored to attract and aggregate pelagic fish, making them easier to find and catch, Greenpeace said.
However, FADs do not increase the abundance of fish, but only redistribute them into a smaller area, it added.
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Vince Cinches, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines, urged the government to progressively increase the FAD ban period until a there is a full ban on the use of FADs in purse seine fishing in the near future.
“It’s time that we make these changes to save our fishing industry and restore the country’s top status in the international tuna arena,” he said.
The BFAR has implemented an annual three-month ban on FAD fishing since the last few years.
