Destruction of marine habitats

Marine habitats in Hong Kong have been placed and continue to be under considerable pressure in the last 50 years of economic development.

 

Trawling

• The prevalence of destructive fishing techniques, especially bottom trawling, places huge pressure on the marine ecosystems in Hong Kong.  Trawling is a method of fishing that essentially is the sweeping of large nets across the seabed in an effort to catch mainly shrimp and prawn, however by the nature of this method there is a huge by-catch issue, where non target species are caught and terrible destruction of important benthic marine communities.
• Have a look at the following image. A diverse seafloor, support a wide variety of marine species.  Put your mouse over the image to see what happens after a trawler has been through.

 

Seafloor before and after trawling (put your mouse over the image to see the destruction)

 

• In many international seas and especially many coastal areas, trawling is banned. For instance, much of the west coast of the USA, and in the whole of the South Pacific (25% of the world’s oceans) trawling is banned, whilst trawling is not allowed in Hong Kong’s marine parks, this still leaves most of Hong Kong’s water unprotected.

• Other destructive fishing techniques such as dynamite fishing, use of electric charges are not allowed in Hong Kong waters however they are still occurring.
• Living Seas Hong Kong fully supports the current HK government plans to ban all trawling in Hong Kong’s waters and seeks a rapid implementation of a full ban.

Dredging

Dredging has two major effects, firstly sensitive marine organisms require clear water and sunlight to thrive, dredging stirs up sediment and reduces the ability of marine organisms such as corals to survive. Also in Hong Kong’s early economic development industrial waste in the form of heavy metals and chemicals have caused irreversible contaminated of bottom sediments.  Dredging stirs up this toxic mix which enters the food chain.

 

Reclamation

Over 10% of Hong Kong’s land area has been reclaimed from the sea and the Hong Kong government is still planning several major reclamation projects. This has resulted in the loss of shore habitats and shallow feeding areas for many marine creatures.