Turkish experts call for urgent action on Marmara fish stocks crisis
Stringent regulations across the Marmara Sea are desperately needed if the region is to protect fish stocks and prevent more species from going extinct, according to experts meeting Sunday in Istanbul.
“Our seas have been left to their fate. Species such as mackerel, swordfish and tuna are rapidly going extinct. Now it is the turn of the bluefish,” said Bayram Öztürk, president of the Turkish Marine Research Foundation, or TÜDAV, which organized the Fisheries Convention on Sunday in cooperation with Sarıyer Municipality.
Öztürk said protection zones should be set up around the Marmara Sea and the Princess Islands, also requesting that more purification plants should be set up.
“Trawl net hunting is forbidden in the Marmara, but it still goes on,” Öztürk said, also noting the problems of fishermen, such as credit, housing and a lack of incentives, such as a decrease in taxes.
“Unless we have a fisheries ministry or an undersecretary, we will be holding such meetings a lot more,” said Kamuran Patrona, the Ankara representative of the Muğla Culture Fisheries Association. “The European Union also notes the lack of a public institution on this area.”
Pointing toward illegal fishing in the Marmara Sea, Yalçın Güney Çelik of the Bostancı Aquaculture Cooperative said 113 fish species have gone extinct. "Controls against illegal fishing should be more frequent.”
If authorities see fishermen fishing at night with the use of lights, they should “immediately seize the vessel,” said Çelik. “In the Bosphorus, industrial fishing should be completely forbidden. Only fishhook hunting should be allowed.”
Fish farming on the rise
“Annual global fish consumption stands at 140 million tons,” he said. “Eighty percent of this amount is consumed by humans, while 20 percent is used in other areas.”
Noting the global rise of fish farming, as opposed to fishing, Patron said fish farming has an annual volume of $87 billion and annual production of 50 million tons, with more than 30 million tons coming from China alone.
“Farming is rising. The prediction is that [normal fishing] will not account for more than 100 million tons per year in the future,” Patrona said.
Fish farming in Turkey has an annual volume of 158,000 tons, while farms focus on gilthead and seabass in sea and salmon in fresh water – the latter of which constitutes 47 percent of overall production.
“We rank number one in Europe in salmon farming,” Patrona said. “We’re targeting 200,000 tons in production and $600 million in annual exports by 2013.”
Erdoğan Kartal, chief of the Istanbul Aquaculture Cooperatives, called for sustainable fishing. “If not, fishing will become synonymous with hunger and poverty in the future,” he said. “Every fish should have the chance to lay eggs once.”
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