E-Petition To Ban Long-Line Fishing
An e-petition calling on Government to ban long-line fishing in Bermuda waters has attracted over 1,300 signatures as of this writing.
The e-petition’s text says, “The Bermuda Government has started talks aimed at licensing foreign fishing vessels that catch fish in Bermuda’s 200-mile maritime exclusive economic zone.
“These fishermen often use long-lines to catch fish. This method of fishing reaps indiscriminate, wholesale destruction upon our fragile marine environment. We believe that Bermuda would be far better off if it managed its marine environment with the aim of developing eco-tourism.
“We conclude that the economies of eco-tourism far outweigh the economies of long-line fishing. We therefore ask that the Bermuda Government take a stand on the side of our marine environment and pass legislation which bans long-line fishing.”
During his speech at the post budget press conference last month, Environment, Planning and Infrastructure Minister Marc Bean said in an effort to find new revenue for Bermuda, the Ministry will develop an offshore fishery and “seek to implement a licensing regime” for international vessels to fish in our waters.
“We hope that by facilitating the development of our own offshore fishery, combined with increased control via licensing and protection of our EEZ from international vessels, the Government and people of Bermuda will benefit by increased economic activity and revenues,” said Minister Bean.
The One Bermuda Alliance responded, with Shadow Minister of the Environment Michael Fahy saying the OBA is “alarmed” by Government’s proposal which“would appear to fly in the face” of the Government’s proposal to create one of the world’s largest maritime reserves.
The Senator also said fishermen in deep water mainly use long lines to catch fish, with the lines up to 50 miles long with thousands of baited hooks attached, a method that has been attacked by international conservation groups as the “the by-catch involves the slaughter of thousands of unwanted creatures.”
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I think a few points need to be stressed here.
There are essentially two types of long-line fishing, the version practiced by the most up until the end of the 1990′s and a newer version developed since. The earlier version, using J-hooks and poor practice with setting lines and by-catch policies is still practiced in many jurisdictions. The newer version, using circular hooks and with strict by-catch mitigation and release policies is increasingly regarded as best-practice and with a lot less by-catch problems. It costs more, unsurprisingly, and so is not necessarily the standard. But by licensing long-line fishing here we can stipulate what kind of long-line fishing is allowed, re the best practice kind. This approach has virtually no risk to sea-birds, and I understand something like 90% or more of any by-catch (turtles and sharks) are released alive without any life-threatening injuries.
Now, as it is we do not license foreign vessels fishing in our waters and we have no way of controlling them. By introducing the licensing we introduce a way to control, in that, wedded with a way to see what’s out there, we can take unlicensed vessels to court as per the UN law of the sea (which gives us the 200m marine EEZ also).
Additionally, we have quotas for certain fish stocks and if we don’t use them they get reassigned to other countries. We don’t have a control of where they are given. As such we cannot stipulate that if they are given they are given only to nations enforcing best-practice fishing standards. Surely it is better to use our own resources, sustainably, and with best-practice rather than giving a green-light to other nations not adopting best-practice?
I welcome debate on this of course, and, one should certainly sign the petition if one feels, after all the evidence, that such is what one thinks is right.
And the Government should release their case-study on long-line fishing with the Eagle Eye II, if they haven’t done so already.
And we’d enforce this licensing how?
Maybe look down on our share of the ocean with our new space industry?
Track down unlicensed fishing vessels with our drones?
Verify the use of circular hooks by placing a Bermudian on board each vessel?
I agree, it will need enforced. The drones aren’t actually that bad an idea, I’ve seen drones built for marine research (by air) that sell for about £5000, so that would be cheaper than a naval fleet.
Things is, how can we enforce it at present? It’s all very well saying we don’t want fishing in our waters, but just saying that no more prevents it than the licenses. But with the licenses we can at least regulate it (those fishing in our waters must use the best practices), and we can take unlicensed vessels to court provided we can identify them some how.
I expect that a condition of the licensing would be that a certain number of Bermudian jobs are involved, and I would actually prefer our waters to be Bermudian fished. I actually don’t think it makes economic sense exporting the catch via Bermuda afterall, although it could make some economic sense to sell the catch on island.
As is, we cannot enforce what fishing happens. Licensing is just the first step.
Taking licensing fees from these foreigners to fish our waters is Blood Money. Bermuda has no way to supervise these killers of our marine life. Longline fishing is a loose-loose proposition. It also provides no Bermuda jobs and does nothing to grow our local fisheries.
As for blood money I am more concerned with companies based in Bermuda that fund, or are, private military contractors – that is, mercenaries – that are going around places like Afghanistan and Iraq causing havoc. Our companies based here that invest in or operate exploitative operations overseas in Asia or Africa. Those are more worrisome to me than fishing our waters when it comes to blood money. By extension your argument could advocate complete vegetarianism, if all meat and fish production is blood money. Either you take that to its logical conclusion, vegetarianism, or you are okay with blood money in this way as long is it’s not in your backyard.
And part of regulating the industry, which may very well be going on right now, just without our knowledge or control, could be stipulating that a certain number of Bermudians work on the ships, or that all catch must be processed in Bermuda, thus producing jobs for our people.
Um speechless….ur logic defies the imagination.
Care to expand?
You originally said that this idea was akin to blood money. How? Because we will harvest fish? Is this any different from buying fish harvested in other seas or eating meat? Perhaps I misunderstand your original position, in which case you need to clarify – I am not a mind-reader.
And to be upset about this as blood money but not over companies based in Bermuda aiding and abetting state-sponsored terrorism or exploitative labour practices elsewhere would defy the imagination, imho.
Being that Bermuda rarely enforces its laws, we can’t work on that premise. If it isn’t enforced it might as well not happen. Mainly because most people don’t care about the environment, they care about catching fish to make money to put food on the table so an honors policy will most definitely not work.
this is such a hard one to comment on..J Starling….you appear to have no knowledge of the scourge of long liners…..best practice does not ensure the longevity of the migratory species which are in fact by-catch for our local fishermen. we actually have very few pelagic species that are resident to our waters but a predominantly migratory group which uses the two sea mounts and our reef ecosystem to feed, spawn and move on.
the long line industry would search/destroy and decimate what is left.
if people think that fishpots did a number on our fish stocks wait until we open our shores to these pirates of the deep.
I agree that the worst-practice long-lining is wrong, but the best-practice isn’t all that bad. I would rather we catch them all by individual fishing line, sport-fishing style, but I don’t think that’s very economical, in that I can’t see it making sense if we wish to utilise our quotas. We could send a fleet of individual boats out to catch fish sport-fishing style, but the resulting pollution from that increase in boats may be much worse than a single long-liner using best practice.
Except for our reef fish all our open-water (pelagic) fish are migratory. I’m not disputing that. Tuna, swordfish and the like, I don’t think they actually use our reefs for feeding and breeding though; maybe the sea-mounts, but not the reefs proper.
As long as we can ensure best-practice long-lining, I’m not necessarily against it. More information is, of course, welcome and encouraged!
Marc Bean has the exact mindset that has Bermuda borrowing huge amounts of money from foreign investors .
Is this horizontal or vertical long lining? Vertical long lining was used by local fishermen in the eighties and I don’t recall by catch issues. I was under the impression that the international long liners use horizontal methods.
I have received information on what is being done by our sister islands to the south. Once I can figure how to get it from my phone to this site,, I will share. It at least offers a jumping off point, although it i not the full story by any means.
Bermuda can’t even supervise the fishing off bridges & ferry docks (where no fishing signs are posted).
How in the world can they expect to patrol over the horizon waters?
People have no idea of what hairbrained ideas like using drones cost.
A hobbyists model may cost $5000.00 Get real about the cost of a military or commercial grade sized one that can remain in the air for many hours.
Absolutely crazy idea to make the koolaid crowd happy.
The model I referred to cost £5000, so that’s about $6500 roughly. It’s designed for aerial surveilance for marine research purposes and can fly for several hours. I’m not saying it’s the ideal model, I’m just saying these drones don’t have to cost millions.
As you note we are not currently monitoring and enforcing our waters. So foreign vessels may be exploiting our resources even now, without using best-practice or providing any jobs for us. While drones may be pricey, so would a full naval fleet patrolling our waters.
It comes down to whether or not you want our waters monitored and illegal fishing prevented and then doing a cost-benefit analysis of the options. Even if you want the area declared a protected zone, you still need to be able to monitor it.
I believe that Bermuda’s environmental bodies are working toward making the waters around Bermuda a protected zone. PEW Foundation, BASS (Bermuda Alliance of the Sargasso Sea) and others. This just plain contradicts what they are trying to do. Are we so greedy for money that we will do ANYTHING? Including risking the extinction of fish stocks, plant life and our coral reefs all for the sake of money?
Yes….unfortunately we are that greedy!!!
NO WE ARE NOT!!! Just like every idea plp comes up with it is pulled out of thin air without any professional consultation. When I type professional that doesn’t mean fisherman as they do not have an environmental degree & we don’t need outside professionals either to make decisions. We have enough people on island with enough credentials to lead us in the right direction. PLP just choses to look outward because it allows them a hard to pin down excuse of where our money goes.
When I fish I only keep the big fish that I can share with the whole family. The small ones go back to live & breed. If I don’t catch a big one well oh well better luck next time. Others may catch everything that moves but others doesn’t count as all. Though I’ll tell all one thing the amount that these foreign fleets will catch if invited to will hurt more than some greedy local fisherman’s catch.
First we wanted to ban fishing pots now we want to allow international fishing fleets. Our government would chase its tale till dizzy & down then get back up & do it all over again.
omg, not another e-petition
OH YEAAAAA!!!! & another & another since this is the only way to have a voice when ruled by a fascist party that feels what they say goes. At least we’ll have something to show Britain when they wonder why our political structure is so out of whack. It was not us Britain it was them look at the petitions & you’ll see our government is trying to become supreme ruler in spite of the people’s opinion.
Without the Eagle Eye report how can anyone agree to this. This smells like a dead fish!!
The pot ban faced tons of opposition but it was the right thing to do – the pots raped our reefs.How in lords name will we police the long liners?
Even if one turtle is caught as a by-catch it is wrong.
We cannot protect the reefs/banks that we have with the staff we have.
Protect our seas we should be stewards of the seas.
I completely agree. I cannot understand why it hasn’t been released yet. All the relevant information should be made available so that we can have an informed discussion about it.