Trawling is banned in many coastal areas, including:
- United States has banned bottom trawling in many coastal areas.
- New Zealand has banned trawling in 30% of its waters.
- Belize bans all trawling
- EU banned trawling in Canary Islands and the Azores
- Australia
- South Africa
This very destructive practice has no place in Hong Kong waters. Hong Kong’s fishermen need to be given other opportunities to earn a living, the HK government and the community has an important role to play.
Fishing in marine parks is allowed by local residents with a permit, this means that the only area that is fully protected in Hong Kong is the Cape d’Aguilar Marine Reserve, a tiny 18 hectares (approx 0.01% of Hong Kong’s seas). Stopping commercial fishing, essentially using nets in the marine parks is a necessary step to a recovery of our marine life.
These two factors will make a major difference to Hong Kong’s beleaguered marine life. More needs to be done but we look forward to their rapid implementation.
The AFCD, the government department responsible for this, faces some challenges from a well organised fishing lobby group. So we need to clearly state our position and support for these measures. The time for this is coming soon, watch out for more updates from Living Seas.