via FastCoExist.com
Conservation scientists say there needs to be a new approach to protecting offshore marine reserves.
Illegal fishing in marine reserves will be a major focus at the IUCN World Parks Congress, which has opened in Sydney.
Researchers at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE) at James Cook University, who are attending the conference, have found a way to predict illegal fishing activities to help authorities better protect marine reserves.
Marine reserves are the most common strategy used to protect and maintain marine ecosystems around the world.
The International Convention of Biological Diversity aims to have 10 per cent of the world’s marine areas protected by 2020.
Many countries are contributing to this target by protecting remote, offshore areas. For example, the United States recently created the world’s largest fully protected marine reserve, covering almost 1.27 million square kilometres in the central Pacific Ocean.
But scientists are concerned that while a great deal of effort is being made to create reserves, many countries are simply not able to enforce the laws that are supposed to protect them.
The majority of fishers obey the law, but some don’t.
“The success of protected areas depends on whether people comply with the regulations,” says Professor Joshua Cinner from Coral CoE.
“Enforcement and compliance issues for large off-shore marine parks are fundamentally different to near-shore protected areas,” Professor Cinner says.
He explains that the biggest problems facing countries trying to enforce offshore marine reserves is their distance from land and the difficulty and cost of patrolling large tracts of ocean.
The Latest on: Illegal fishing
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via Google News
The Latest on: Illegal fishing
- Senegal : government aims to curb illegal fishingon May 8, 2024 at 4:09 am
First step towards more transparency in the fishing sector in Senegal. On Monday, the government published a list of boats authorized to fish in Senegalese waters. More information with FRANCE 24 ...
- 11 arrested for engaging in illegal fishing in northern season May 7, 2024 at 11:49 pm
The Navy nabbed 11 persons for engaging in illegal night diving and light-coarse fishing, during separate operations conducted in the ...
- Africa: Greenpeace Africa Applauds Senegal's Publication of Fishing Vessel List and Urges the Government to Join FiTIon May 7, 2024 at 5:00 pm
Involve the fishing communities in the governance of offshore oil and gas exploitation as it impacts their livelihood. Freeze new fishmeal plants and conduct environmental/social audits of existing ...
- NZ Navy helps monitor Fiji waters against illegal fishingon May 7, 2024 at 11:25 am
The majority of vessels inspected by a 10-personnel Royal New Zealand Navy contingent and officers from the Ministry of Fisheries were in compliance with their terms of their licenses. The crew only ...
- Deadly fishing methods that destroy the environmenton May 7, 2024 at 8:45 am
But unregulated and illegal fishing practices can destroy these protected zones, especially if they use destructive fishing methods. In other places, there are not enough laws and enforcement put in ...
- China's Illegal Fishing Is Also a Human Rights Issueon May 6, 2024 at 5:39 am
China's distant-water fishing fleet, the world's largest, is engaging in human rights abuses and systematic illegal fishing on an unprecedented scale. Urgent action is needed now to rein in the ...
- Illegal fishing: Amolatar locals appeal to government for assistanceon May 5, 2024 at 3:42 am
Fisheries State Minister Hellen Adoa has called on local leaders in Amolatar Districts to sensitize local fishing communities on modern and legal fishing methods to save the lake from ...
- US regulators maintain fishing quota for valuable baby eels, even as Canada struggles with poachingon May 1, 2024 at 1:38 pm
U.S. regulators have decided to allow American fishermen to harvest thousands of pounds of a valuable species of tiny fish in the coming years, even as Canadian authorities have shuttered the industry ...
- VN action programme cracks down on illegal fishingon April 25, 2024 at 5:37 pm
A raft of measures to deal with illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is included in the Government’s freshly issued action programme.
- Challenges faced in curbing illegal fishingon April 24, 2024 at 4:49 pm
Despite complaints of the use of poison and other illegal tools to fish in rivers in the state, nobody has been arrested or prosecuted in the past few years, says Assistant Sabah Agriculture, ...
via Bing News
