Did the pandemic help or hinder Greek fishing? Experts offered their take with Greek Reporter on how fish populations and marine life are faring today after the coronavirus lockdowns.
One year ago, Greek scientists were noting a remarkable recovery of fish stocks and marine life as a whole, due to the lockdowns and restrictions imposed on fishing.
Thanasis Tsikliras, an Associate Professor of the Department of Biology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, explained that that fishing had been severely curtailed as a result of the first few months of the pandemic. “It may have dropped by 60-70 percent in the last three months and in some areas it may have even reached 100 percent.”
A year later, Tsikliras says that “The reduction of pollution on a global level is impressive. In Greece we have notable improvements, observed in all ecosystems.”
He explains that pollutant measurements, done in real time, “show that chemical pollutants and marine trash were significantly reduced within a month.” He added “Greece will benefit in multiple ways from this.”
According to Tsilkliras the restrictive measures from Greece’s first lockdown in the spring of 2020 were responsible for a “great reduction in pressure on fishing reserves across all fishing activities, whether by professionals or amateurs.”
Although commercial fishing did not stop entirely during lockdown, the combination of reduced fishing, a ban on swimming and a ban on amateur fishing at the time “all ended up in zero fishing pressure on the coastal front as well,” said Tsikliras.
The biologist predicted that in a few years the biomass of marine life in the Greek seas, particularly fish, will rise steeply because of the absence of the usual mass harvesting of the resource — and even the size of the fish will be greater.
“Fish born today – except for anchovies and sardines, which are fished when they’re a year old – will be fished two or three years from now,” Tsikliras explains. This will greatly benefit commercial fishermen in the long run.
The unplanned fishing pause offered an unexpected research opportunity — one that could demonstrate a better, more sustainable way to manage the seas in the post-COVID-19 era.
Experts mostly agree that the slow down of human activity was simply one breath. The seas require a full oxygen tank in order to recover.
Scuba diver Pierre-Yves Cousteau, the youngest son of renowned oceanographer and explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, is a frequent visitor to the southeastern Aegean.
He has stated that the Aegean’s underwater landscape is like a stage in a wonderful theater. The set is unique with underwater caves, seagrass meadows, dramatic cliffs and an incredible clarity of water.
However, it is a theater without actors or an audience. Local fishermen complained to the oceanographer that “We got a sea full of fish from our parents but are delivering a desert to our children.”
The Mediterranean and the Aegean have been overfished for decades. As far back as 1975, the multilateral environmental agreement, as part of the Regional Seas Program of the United Nations Environment Program, UNEP, was created.
Mediterranean countries and the European Community approved the Mediterranean Action Plan (MAP) as the institutional framework for cooperation in addressing common challenges of marine environmental degradation.
Under the auspices of UNEP/MAP, a framework convention dedicated to the Protection of the Mediterranean Sea against Pollution was adopted in 1976 and amended two decades later to encompass the key concepts adopted at the landmark 1992 Rio Conference and to include coasts in its scope.
The Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment and the Coastal Region of the Mediterranean was adopted in the 1995 Barcelona Convention.
UNEP/MAP and the Contracting Parties to the Barcelona Convention – 21 Mediterranean countries and the European Union — have created a comprehensive institutional and legal framework integrating essential building blocks for sustainability in the Mediterranean.
Gaetono Leone, the recently retired coordinator of the UNEP/MAP program, told Greek Reporter “We do not need to advocate for a pandemic to improve marine environments. Human activity-and its impact on the seas thanks to the pause created by the pandemic slowed down the impact for a short while.
“It did not reverse the general trend and we still have great cause for concern.”
The Italian national has been based in Greece the past few years and Athens has served as host to the office of the General Secretariat. Leone says “Our research demonstrated that 78 percent of the fish stock in the Mediterranean is being removed beyond its capacity to reproduce.”
Greek coastlines are one third of the coastal environments that are part of UNEP/MAP. “We are the richest generation ever and yet we have also messed up the planet and mankind in the worst way,” states Leone.
“Integrating coastal management by considering the impact on local communities and ratifying into legislation the recommendations we have made, will reduce the damage,” Leone says.
One of the current recommendations to all coastal environments is that tourism development be carried out a 100-meter distance from the coastline. However, most seaside tavernas of the past and today practically have the tables in the water, and hotels have private rooms, pools and catering facilities that are also in extreme proximity to the water’s edge.
If the trend continues, the pristine seas that Greek tourism is selling are in jeopardy. “The shoreline will not remain beautiful with this type of development. It is not sustainable. Other countries such as Spain are already suffering because of the exploitation of pristine natural environments thanks to over ambitious development,” according to Leone.
“We have no enforcement capacity — the job of the UNEP/MAP is to make recommendations for successful integrated management of Mediterranean coastlines. But it is up to the individual governments to follow through on that guidance with mandates and resolutions,” says Leone.
Greece has been on board with reducing the carbon emissions of its marine traffic. This will help to slow down the trend of pollution but it will not reverse it completely.
There are several non-profits working to protect the Aegean’s marine life. They include the Cyclades Preservation Fund, CPF, All For the Blue and Enaleia.
“I got more and more worried about the scarcity of fish and the increase of plastic,” said Lefteris Arapakis, the Greek who was named Young Champions of the Earth in 2020 by UNEP.
He saw greater amounts of plastic turning up in the nets when he fished. And because no other option was evident it was dumped back into the water. “I was deeply concerned that my father, and now my brothers, could not make a living out of this job, which is what they learned to do and what they love to do.”
The revelation led Arapakis to found Greece’s first professional fishing school, Enaleia, which translates as “fishing together,” in 2016. Its mandates are to teach fishermen to ply their trade in a more eco-friendly manner and enlist the help of the seafaring community to scour the Mediterranean for discarded plastic.
GreekReporter.com