THOUGH EXCESSIVE tourism has garnered
recent headlines over threats to the health of Thailand’s diverse
saltwater seas, illegal fishing presents another big challenge to
preserving their rich natural resources.
Remote off-shore islands and
underwater rocks are at the greatest risk of damage from illegal fishing
activities, say marine ecosystems experts.
Meanwhile the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department
(DNP) and the Fisheries Department are working together to solve the
problem of illegal fishing inside national park areas.
Shortly after Mu Ko Surin National Park in Phang Nga was opened for
tourism last week, a group of scuba divers found a large fishing net
covering a large area of coral reef at Mu Ko Surin’s prominent
scuba-diving spot, Richelieu Rock.
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It took four days to remove the fishing net from the reef, and this was
not the first time that Richelieu Rock’s sensitive reef ecosystem had
been threatened by fishing impacts.
Tongkan Worapanya, one of the scuba divers to discover the fishing net
debris at Richelieu Rock last Thursday, quickly contacted Mu Ko Surin
National Park and fellow scuba divers to help raise it from the reef.
“Though the damage to the corals caused by the net appears to be minor, I
noticed that the fish population at Richelieu u Rock had greatly
decreased when the net covered the coral reef,” said Tongkan, who is
also an open water instructor at British Sub Aqua Club.
“We have been working tirelessly with national park officers to clear
out the net and have just finished removing all of the fishing net
debris.”
He suspects the net may have come from a fishing trawler too close to
the rock, which accidentally entangled its net on the coral reef.
Another possibility is the net was marine debris and had been washed
over the reef by strong waves during the recent monsoon season.
Richelieu Rock is a submerged shoal within the Mu Ko Surin National
Park, around 14 kilometres from Mu Ko Surin Islands, so any fishing
activities at the reef or anywhere inside the national park are illegal.
The coral reef at Richelieu Rock is famous for its pristine deepwater
corals and the high diversity of colourful marine animal, and so has
become a prime destination for scuba divers to observe the scenic
underwater world, and for illegal fishermen who come to catch abundant
fish at the reef.
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Dynamite fishing
Tongkan further noted that this was not the first time that evidence of
illegal fishing activities had been discovered at Richelieu Rock. Divers
occasionally find fishing-net debris at the reef, and last year part of
the vulnerable ecosystem was damaged by a blast from dynamite fishing.
Prominent marine biologist and member of the National Strategy Committee
on Environmental Development, Thon Thamrongnawasawat, said illegal
fishing presented a big problem to the efforts to preserve marine
ecosystems.
Not only are many rare marine animals caught and killed by illegal,
unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, he said, but the beautiful
coral reefs are also destroyed, causing huge damage to both the
ecosystem and the tourism sector.
“Despite the authorities’ best efforts, many remote islands and
underwater shoals are still out of patrol range for officers to
regularly check and prevent illegal fishing, so these areas are our main
blind spots,” Thon said.
To mitigate the problem, DNP is now working with the Fisheries
Department on a proposal for trans-agency data sharing from vessel
monitoring systems tracking.
That would alert them to encroachment in national park areas by any fishing vessels.
But data sharing agreements take time to hammer out. “There are still a
lot of negotiations ahead until an agreement will be reached,” said
Thon.
Source -The Nation
