Illegal driftnetting in the Mediterranean

In the 1980s driftnets cost the lives of millions of marine species every year, undermining ecosystem security and marine biodiversity, threatening populations and entire species. In 1993 a UN moratorium came into force prohibiting the use of most types of driftnets. The EU responded initially by banning the use of driftnets over 2.5km in length within the Mediterranean, but illegal drift-netting continued, mainly by Italian fleets. The EU subsequently introduced a total ban on the use of driftnets in fisheries targeting ten species, including tuna, swordfish, sharks, marlin and cephalopods, a move that was reiterated in 2003 by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT).

Although banned under the UN moratorium for over a decade and despite the strong public and political perception that the driftnet problem has been solved, legal loopholes and weak enforcement means that illegal driftnets continue to be used by Italian, French, Moroccan, Turkish and Algerian fleets. With bluefin tuna, for example, fetching £17,000 for a 60-70kg fish (around £250 per kg), there is a massive incentive for illegal fleets to continue to use driftnets to catch lucrative swordfish and tuna for sale to the EU and elsewhere.

EJF's research leads to the conclusion that driftnets pose a continued, massive and unsustainable threat to marine life. The covert nature of the activity and the reluctance of governments to acknowledge the problem means that precise figures are impossible to establish, but it is estimated that thousands of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises), turtles, sea birds and non-target fish species, including rays and sharks, die in driftnets each year. An estimated 85% of animals caught in driftnets are thrown back into the sea, dead or dying.

Driftnets are among the simplest and oldest methods of fishing. A vertical sheet of netting, held in place by floats and a weight-line attached to the bottom of the net, is hung from the water's surface. Tethered to a buoy or the side of a fishing vessel, the net is then left to drift passively for hours or even days, entangling or gilling any fish that swims into it.

Traditionally, small driftnets were made of cotton and used by coastal communities to catch dense schools of fish, such as mackerel, herring and sprat. However, the development of nylon netting in the 1970s resulted in a dramatic change in the scale of driftnet fisheries. The new synthetic netting was barely visible once in the water, but strong enough to endure the rigours of the open seas. Consequently, large-scale driftnet fisheries developed for large pelagic species such as tuna, squid, and swordfish.

These new pelagic driftnets reached monstrous proportions - extending up to 50km in length, and hanging vertically 20-30m from the waters surface. During the 1980s - at the peak of the high seas driftnet fishery - approximately 50,000km of these nets were being cast into the oceans every night. However, they proved to be inherently unselective, catching enormous numbers of non-target species such as sharks, rays, dolphins, whales, turtles and sea birds. The FAO estimate, for example, that during the 1988-89 fishing season up to one million dolphins, whales and porpoises (collectively known as cetaceans) were killed by pelagic driftnets worldwide.

Mounting scientific evidence for the devastating effects of large-scale driftnets during the 1980s and 90s earned them the nickname "walls of death", and in 1992 the United Nations acted unanimously in banning their use on the high seas. Many nations responded by banning driftnets in their own territorial waters, including the EU that banned driftnets in 2002. In 2005 the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean endorsed an ICCAT decision that rendered a total ban on driftnet fishing –irrespective of net size – on large pelagic species (including tuna, sharks, and swordfish) applicable to all Mediterranean States. Yet despite this some Mediterranean nations continue to look away while their fishermen use these highly destructive nets, allowing the massacre of bycatch species to continue.