Deep Sea Fish Conservation Must Not Go Adrift
Context:
- The Indian Supreme Court has authorised fishing in Tamil Nadu’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) (200 nautical miles) and outside territorial seas (12 nautical miles), subject to certain restrictions (SC).
SC Order’s effects include:
- A coastal state’s obligations and conservation measures under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in its Exclusive Economic Zone appear to be less of a focus of the Court’s interim order of January 2023 against the Tamil Nadu Government’s February 2022 ban on purse seine fishing (UNCLOS).
- The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), sometimes known as the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, provides the legal framework for all marine and maritime activity. It lays forth rules for all uses of ocean resources and creates a comprehensive system of law and order throughout the world’s oceans and seas.
- A sovereign state is allowed special advantages for the exploration and use of maritime resources, including the production of wind and water power, in an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), as defined by UNCLOS.
- Nonetheless, the order had to have considered conservation measures (as advised by several regional treaties) and decisions from other tribunals (incorporating conservation measures based on best science or pertinent scientific evidence to control overfishing and protect endangered marine living resources from extinction).
Using a purse seine for fishing:
- In a purse seine, purse rings are suspended from the lower edge of the equipment and form a long wall of netting that is supported by floating and leadline. The net can be drawn through the purse rings using a purse line made of steel wire or rope.
- A vertical net “curtain” that surrounds the school of fish is then drawn together at the bottom to cage the fish, much like tightening the cords of a drawstring bag.
- Purse seiners routinely overfish, endangering traditional fishermen’s ability to survive, in contrast to traditional fishermen who use traditional fishing gear.
- Purse seines are used to catch large groups of single-species pelagic (midwater) fish, such as tuna and mackerel, in the open ocean.
- Concerns in some States over the dwindling populations of small, pelagic shoaling fish, such as sardines, mackerel, anchovies, and trevally, along western beaches are related to this issue.
Norms and environmental protection:
- The duties emanating from the multilateral and regional conventions, which are meant to adopt sustainable fishing practises over a predetermined period of time, allowing a common resource like fish to be regenerated organically, should serve as guidance for the supreme court.
- In order to prevent overexploitation, coastal nations must make use of, conserve, and manage the EEZ’s living and non-living resources in line with UNCLOS. Entry into the zone by foreign fleets is solely up to the coastal state’s decision and is subject to its laws and regulations.
- Coastal States shall estimate the total permitted catch (TAC) in the EEZ using the best available scientific evidence to avoid overexploitation. The TAC and allocations distribution among the SBT parties are important factors from the standpoint of the overall conservation of the fisheries.
- TAC and catch quotas are meant to motivate anglers to use sustainable fishing methods and to preserve the highest possible sustainable yield (MSY). The recommended safe limits to preserve MSY may be a source of scientific doubt for the TAC and catch quota’s implementation. International environmental law has a tradition of erring on the side of caution in certain situations.
Regulating fishing methods:
- The Court’s decision only permits purse seineiners to fish on Mondays and Thursdays between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., but this is insufficient without further limiting fishing methods. International regulatory actions are phasing out the usage of large-scale pelagic nets.
- Purse seine nets are so large (2,000 metres long and 200 metres deep) that they can catch the maximum number of fish, leaving traditional fishermen with insufficient catches.
- The Tarawa Declaration of the South Pacific Forum from 1989 is one example of a regional organisation that either forbids the deployment of large drift nets or at least calls for their elimination.
- The 1989 Convention on the Prohibition of Fishing with Long Drift Nets in the South Pacific restricts port access for drift net fishing vessels.
- UNGA Resolutions 44/225 (1989) and 46/215 (1991), which urged a ban on all large-scale pelagic drift net fishing vessels in the high seas, aided and abetted this growth.
- The agreements and decisions of the UN General Assembly nevertheless matter for preventing overfishing generally and sustaining fishery management in the EEZ, even though they do not apply to the state parties in the high seas.
Conclusion:
- Even the best conservation efforts and fishing method restrictions put in place by the authorities won’t be able to deal with the endless character of the seas, which makes a common resource like fish available for exploitation by anybody.
- All fishermen, especially Tamil Nadu’s purse seiners, should be persuaded to cooperate in following to conservation restrictions by Garrett Hardin’s “Tragedy of the Commons” argument, which contends that “Freedom in a commons brings devastation to everybody.”
