China Cracks Down on Illegal Fishery Activities

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, November 29, 2001

China Cracks Down on Illegal Fishery Activities

Campaign launched against overfishing

Authorities netted an abundance of illegal fishery devices - including poison, electrified machines and explosives - during a large-scale crackdown on the rampant felonious activities along the Yangtze River,according to today's China Daily.

The campaign ran from September 1 to October 31, under the leadership of the Bureau of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and the China Fishery Law Enforcement Command Centre.

The joint overhaul on illegal fishery activities was conducted in the provinces and municipalities along the Yangtze River, including Shanghai, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan and Chongqing, said Guo Yunfeng, an official with the bureau on Tuesday.

During the campaign - the third and largest since 1999 - the fishery authorities tracked down 3,309 illegal cases, confiscating 2,671 electrified fishing machines, three bottles of fishery poisons, 52.5 kilograms of explosives and 153 detonators, according to statistics from the bureau.

Short-sighted actions destroy fishery resources

Fishing with the use of electricity, poisons and explosives will not only severely disturb the order of the fishery industry but also destroy fishery resources and the ecosystem of the river, Guo said.

"For example, one electric current may cause the coma of all the fish and aquatic animals within a circumference of 100 square metres," Guo said. "All of them will lose their reproductive capacity forever."

However, many fishermen in the area claim they have to use every means nowadays to catch more fish to make a living, Guo said.

These methods reap rewards in the short term, but severely damage fishing output in the long term.. "A vicious circle, therefore, takes shape," Guo said.

The worsening ecosystem of the river cannot only point the finger of blame at the cruel fishing techniques.

In recent years, the fishery industry of the Yangtze River - one of China's mother rivers - has severely suffered due to environmental pollution, construction of irrigation projects and the reclamation of land from lakes, said Wang Limin on Tuesday, the director of Shanghai-based Administrative Commission of Yangtze River Fishery Resources, which oversaw the joint campaign.

"The campaign was aimed to threaten the illegal activities in the fishery industry," said the director. "We will continue our daily overhaul on the fishery production along the river."

China's blow on illegal fishing in 1999

China's crackdown on illegal fishing activities involving electric shock devices, explosives and poisoning along the Yangtze River has dealt a heavy blow to illegal fishermen, whose long unchecked activities have now been greatly curbed, the Ministry of Agriculture said in Beijing on November 16.

During the action, more than 1,000 illegal fishing cases were investigated and 1,298 electrical devices seized. Some 41 of the 1, 313 illegal fishermen have been convicted and will go to jail.

Organized by the Fishery Bureau under the Agriculture Ministry of Agriculture, the enforcement activity includes fishery and public security departments in seven provinces and two municipalities along China's longest river, including Jiangsu, Anhui, Hubei, Sichuan, Shanghai and Chongqing.

The Yangtze, rich in aquatic resources, is home to many endangered water animals and fish, and its freshwater fishing output accounts for 60 percent of the country's total.

In recent years, rampant illegal fishing has diminished the aquatic resources and damaged the ecological environment along the river, with some species of fish on the verge of extinction.

Chen Zhengguo, director of the Yangtze River Fishery Resources Office under the Agriculture Ministry, said that of all illegal fishing activities, fishing with electric devices is the most destructive.

"Wherever the electric prod is used, fish, big or small, are doomed, and even if some survive, they basically lose their reproductive ability," he said.

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