Biodiversity in the fishing industry
It is not only the scale of fishing but also the fishing methods that have a decisive impact on biodiversity in the oceans and inland waters.
Bottom trawls, gillnets and longlines harm marine life by destroying seabeds and killing marine mammals and seabirds as by-catch. Abandoned fishing gear, which continues to catch fish uncontrollably (‘ghost fishing’), exacerbates the problem. Furthermore, fishing across the entire food chain has drastically reduced stocks of prey fish. Aquaculture, once thought to be a sustainable alternative to wild-caught fish, causes oxygen depletion in the affected waters when practised intensively. Mangrove forests along the coasts, which are ideally suited to fish farms, are often destroyed by aquaculture within just a few years.