Food security and environmental sustainability
Whilst the demand for food, including for shrimp and fish continues to increase, there is at the same time increasing international concern about over-exploitation of resources and other adverse environmental impacts from fishing.
In this context, this project focuses on three main issues in commercial tropical shrimp trawling: the environmental impact from the capture of large quantities of bycatch and discards, the economic losses due to bycatch and discards, and the effect of shrimp trawling on the sea bed and its fauna.
Bycatch and discards
Bycatch consists of non-targeted fish species an invertebrates caught in the net. Some of this is sold, but a large part is thrown over board. From an ecological and environmental point of view this is undesirable because it results in mortality amongst these fish and invertebrates, as well as amongst marine mammals, turtles and birds.
Impact of trawling on the sea bottom
Shrimp-trawling can also result in a physical impact on the bottom habitat and fauna, and in some areas this impact might have a detrimental effect on biodiversity.
Economic Losses
Economic losses are estimated to run into billions of dollars annually in terms of the potential value which could be realized if, few years later the discard juveniles of commercial fish species where to be caught and marketed as adult fish.
Looking for solutions
Although several bycatch reduction devices (BRDs), including Turtle Excluding Devices (TEDs) have been developed and proved to be efficient, to date no concerted international effort, involving all key participants, has yet been made to resolve the overall problem of this impact by the shrimp-trawler fisheries on tropical marine ecosystems and their constituent species.
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