The unprecedented rise in the production and use of plastics globally has led to increasing incidences of plastic waste becoming an environmental pollutant in both terrestrial and aquatic environments. Plastic from ALDFG currently form a significant part of litter in the marine environments and is now recognized as an eminent and existential threat to aquatic biodiversity and economies that depend on aquatic ecosystems. This challenge has been studied extensively in marine fisheries of the global north but not in inland fisheries mainly found in the global south.
Global inland fisheries resources
Inland capture fisheries are generally defined as the extraction of fish and other aquatic organisms that occurs in lakes, rivers, streams, canals, reservoirs, and other water bodies that are land-locked. Although mainly freshwater in composition, inland fisheries include land-locked salty water bodies like the Caspian Sea and Lake Van. In some country and regional jurisdictions, and mainly for reporting purposes, the definition of inland fisheries is expanded to include catch from estuaries, deltas, and coastal lagoons.
Global inland fisheries resources contribute immensely to nutrition, food security, livelihoods, and rural economies in many developing countries Production reached its highest recorded levels in history in 2019 and now contribute 11.5 million tons to the global capture fish production with 90% of inland fisheries caught from developing countries primarily from Asia and Africa.
Inland fisheries are however facing existential threats from overfishing, environmental destruction, pollution, and climate. Many inland fisheries are found in low-income developing nations where their management is hampered by limited human and financial capabilities to effectively monitor the resources. They are also generally characterized as being open access which brings about problems of enforcement, regulation, and control of fishing effort. Measures to prevent overfishing are focused on limiting gear types and mesh sizes, not fishing effort which has led to IUU fishing, overexploitation of fish stocks and occurrence of plastic pollution as ALDFG.
In these fisheries, ALDFG is not a priority of management because of a lack of understanding of its impacts on the aquatic ecosystem, lack of funding for fisheries management and data collection systems, which are usually unreliable or non-existent ALDFG are not reported in official statistics and very few studies examine the extent of the problem.
Causes of ALDFG in Inland Fisheries Resources.
Gillnets, the commonest gear type used in inland fisheries have high turnover rates, with most being replaced every one to six months. The old gear is usually discarded by throwing it into water systems such as rivers, lakes, wetlands etc. especially in areas where there is a lack of storage facilities. Gear loss also happens during enforcement exercises in the event of IUU fishing when fishermen deliberately discard illegal gear in the aquatic environment to prevent apprehension by the authorities. Rough weather, gear snagging on bottom obstructions, vessel, and fishing gear conflicts in both commercial and recreational fisheries are also major causes.
Ecological and Economic impacts of ALDFG in Inland Fisheries
ALDFG poses a risk to biodiversity, especially to the threatened and endangered aquatic vertebrate species such as the freshwater turtle, otter, and the river dolphin. Teleost fish, crustaceans, mollusks, small mud crabs and aquatic bird species have been known to be caught in ghost gillnets in many inland fisheries. Socio-economic impacts include reduction of aesthetic value of seaside and beaches as well as loss of harvestable fish due to ghost fishing which has impacts on food security especially in countries and regions that depend on fisheries as a means of income as such sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. Studies on the economic impact of fish and gear loss have shown that fishermen may lose almost one third of their income which affects their household maintenance, quality-of-life costs like healthcare, loan servicing and leisure activities.
ISCG offers expertise
The emerging challenge of ALDFG can only be solved by a concerted effort of all stakeholders across different sectors including tourism, transport, fisheries. International Seafood Consulting Group (ISCG) with its large network of experts offers its services to develop solutions to this emerging problem such as development of end of life approaches and development of predictive modeling as a basis for designing lost gear removal programs thereby reducing the impact of ALDFG in aquatic systems.
Drake Ssempijja
Fisheries and Aquaculture Technology Specialist
