Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

As Spanish, French and British fishermen clash over the use of drift
nets in the Bay of Biscay, the European Commission is proposing to ban the
nets in four years’ time. But in a report published last week, the House
of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities opposed the ban despite
hearing evidence that the nets harm fish stocks and other wildlife.

Drift nets are long, straight nets that hang down from the water’s surface.
Fears that they kill large numbers of marine mammals and endangered species
led the UN in 1991 to recommend limiting their length to 2.5 kilometres.
The European Union imposed this limit on drift nets used to catch albacore
tuna in the Bay of Biscay from this summer.

But the Spanish government says it has satellite images showing French
and British boats using longer nets. The Commission agrees that there have
been ‘serious breaches’ of the limit.

Spanish fishermen use hook and line to catch tuna, which is labour intensive.
A boat using this method will catch only a third as many tuna a year as
a drift-netter, say officials at the Commission. French vessels switched
from hook and line to drift nets after their tuna catches plunged from 14
300 tonnes in 1966 to 1830 tonnes in 1987. Cornish fishermen started buying
the nets in 1991, despite the looming threat of the 2.5 kilometre limit.

Spain backs the notion of a total ban, saying the 2.5 kilometre limit
is not being enforced, and that the nets threaten tuna stocks and other
marine wildlife. France argues that there is no evidence that drift nets
do more damage to wildlife than other fishing techniques (This Week, 30
April). In Britain, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food told
the Lords committee that Biscay drift nets are ‘highly selective for the
target species’. It said British vessels use drift nets with 10-metre
‘windows’ every 240 metres to allow dolphins to escape.

But Paul Knapman, fisheries officer for English Nature, says there is
no scientific evidence that such windows work as claimed. According to the
Commission, drift-netters caught more than 2000 dolphins in the Bay of
Biscay in 1991 – enough to damage populations, particularly striped dolphins.

Mark Tasker of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee told the Lords
that as tuna fishing increases, it ‘is probably doing even more damage than
before’ to non-target species. He said that besides dolphins, French drift
nets caught almost 19 000 blue sharks and an unknown number of Ray’s bream
in 1991. Both species breed slowly and could have problems compensating
for the losses, said Tasker.

But the Lords concluded that the Commission has not justified its proposed
ban. They say any ban on drift nets should be based on whether they damage
Europe’s tuna stocks.

The International Committee for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna reported
this year that the albacore population fished in Biscay could be reaching
‘a highly exploited state’. This, says Tasker, means that even if fishing
continues at current levels, ‘it is going to get overfished’.

The European Commission says large cuts in fishing effort are essential
to protect stocks from collapse. It says drift nets ‘are doing nothing to
reduce fishing effort’ in the Bay of Biscay.