Why Is The Med, Dead?

[MrKawamura]

I dived around Icmeler/Marmaris in Turkey and saw one fish. It was a bit startling, a small stingray which swam off as quickly as it appeared. Other than that I saw some small stones on the bottom and a bit of seaweed. I'd be thinking about wrecks if going back to the med, or one of the fish hotspots mentioned above.

[Shoka]

Actually I've just come back from Malta, and at least there things look to be improving.

Malta has joined the EEC, which means it now has to conform to the EEC fishery legislation. That means larger gill net sizes and things like spearfishing with scuba sets is becoming illegal, though its still very spottily enforced.

Inshore trawling is also banned.

There is a cultural change as well. In earlier years there was almost no bird life on Malta, if even a sparrow cheeped, somebody would blast it with a shotgun. That level of pointless damage is becoming unfashionable, and it is starting to show, the mornings were alive with birdsong, and I saw small birds at many places.

This season there are more small fish about, and there is a positive fog of fish fry at some of the sites.

The dive school reports that there is obvious improvement over the last year to eighteen months, and I see clear improvement in the two years since I was last there.

So I'm much more hopeful than before that the problems are soluble, if such simple measures have so profound an effect.


Harry

[andy_richardson]

(29-05-2008 08:28 PM)Shoka Wrote:  Actually I've just come back from Malta, and at least there things look to be improving.

Malta has joined the EEC, which means it now has to conform to the EEC fishery legislation. That means larger gill net sizes and things like spearfishing with scuba sets is becoming illegal, though its still very spottily enforced.

Inshore trawling is also banned.

There is a cultural change as well. In earlier years there was almost no bird life on Malta, if even a sparrow cheeped, somebody would blast it with a shotgun. That level of pointless damage is becoming unfashionable, and it is starting to show, the mornings were alive with birdsong, and I saw small birds at many places.

This season there are more small fish about, and there is a positive fog of fish fry at some of the sites.

The dive school reports that there is obvious improvement over the last year to eighteen months, and I see clear improvement in the two years since I was last there.

So I'm much more hopeful than before that the problems are soluble, if such simple measures have so profound an effect.


Harry

Just as an addendum to that, Cirkewwa at the northern end of the island has been declared a marine reserve, and in the short time that it has had that status the return has been fantastic. This summer I saw 'cuda, jacks, morays, tuna, wrasse, damselfish (amazing swarms of juveniles as well as adults), flying gurnard, saddle bream, octopus, cuttlefish, flounders, and many more that I haven't identified yet. So things are looking up.

[Narcissus]

Its actually due to the tides/currents for the relative lack of marine life in the Med. The temperatuer is warm enough to support a tropical marine environment such as the red sea, but due to the lack of plankton in the waters it cant support such a system. So what you get in return is 30m visability and limited marine life, compared to 20m vis (Egypt) and a thriving environment.,
But having said that, studies are showing that there are more and more Red Sea species showing up in the Med such as Pipefish and Gobies.

[Shoka]

Narcissus, I spent two and a half years in Malta as a schoolboy in the mid to late fifties.

The level of life in the seas around Malta then was massively more diverse then than it is now.

At the time the majority of fishing spots around the shore were occupied by rod fishermen. There were huge shoals of many variates of fish close in around the rocks.

I went back to Malta in the mid 80's and could not believe the difference. The whole inshore zone was a desert.
The rod fishermen had practically disappeared.

The difference was that every shore that you visited had half a dozen spear fishermen prowling 50 meters offshore. That was true through most of the 90's as well.

I doubt that was the only cause however, mechanised fishing came to Malta in a big way. Not only was the foreshore denuded by spearfishermen, but the deeper water was drift netted to death and the bottom ploughed to pieces by trawlers.

What's changes in the last few years is that the trawlers are kept 5K offshore, the drift nets are restricted and forced to use larger mesh nets, and its less fashionable to prowl the shore in a camouflage wetsuit, on Scuba, with a compressed air spear gun.

You actually see local people in the water snorkelling, without a spear....

And I think it's working. Certainly the amount of fish fry about was vastly more than there was during my previous visits.

Given some respite and protection, I believe that the quality of Malta's marine environment could recover to the environment I remember as a boy.

And if it does, it will do wonders for Malta as a holiday destination.

Harry