Fishermen voice their plights from tough action

[scorecard]

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Why are there similar problems in issuing licenses by govt departments? Driving licenses, aviation licenses, and now fishing licenses?

Due to understaff or under the tables?

Add one more factor - totally incapable people in the leadership and senior positions in these departments for decades (mostly appointed through nepotism and as a reward for political favors etc.), therefore no insight, no vision, no knowledge of global standards for these areas, no interest whatever in the work at hand, no improvements, etc.

[scorecard]

Wholesaler boats - Are these the boats who sell to the Thai giant food processing companies / giant Thai fish canning companies?

[tingtongfarang]

Thailand seems to be looking for a way of wiggeling out of the eu ban, maybe a worldwide ban on commercial fishing is the only answer to the depletion of fish stocks worldwide, as is its anyway not sustainable.

[Balance]

The Thai fishing folks made there bed on the sterile coral rubble left in the wake of their weighted nets scraping the ocean floors for decades. The bottom line is that the Thai territorial waters need to recover so that there are places for the fish to breed. Then there is the time needed for the fish stocks to come back. While this is going on, the government should bring in some outside help to determine how much can be harvested on a sustainable basis. This may be by area and by fish species. Finally, the Thai government has to develop a methodology to ENFORCE the rules.

No one seems to be willing to say it, but the days of pillage and plunder for the quick Bhat is, alas, over. Only a fraction of the 50,000 boats will ever be fishing again, and they won't even be doing it until the oceans and the fish have recovered. The U.S.A. went through a similar contraction of the fishing fleets during the 1970's and for the same reasons: over fishing and destruction of breeding grounds. It was a rough time for a lot of people and many went on to other lines of work.

The government should be thinking now about mitigation strategies to help fisherman find alternatives. It could start with incentives for Thai and foreign companies to build factories in areas where jobs are needed and at the same time training people to do those jobs. Lots to do and the faster it can be done the less pain.

[FangFerang]

If the trawlers are staying out to sea, there was not one whisper about how thew boats are refueled at sea. That is a lynch pin to the whole illegal trade no one seems to be noticing. Cut off the at-sea fueling and the trawlers have to put in to port.

A recent BP article baldly stated that the Gulf here is fished out.

That has to imply most of the fishing is illegal, and the number of unregistered boats seems another proof of that. Further, as others noted, the wholesale boats really feed the monsters, so to speak, being illegal fishing and slave labor.

One poster even said his wife's father went on a fishing trip and never came back.

One big mess.

[HappyinNE]

Go into any high end supermarket in Thailand or middle level or local street markets and you will see an abundance of fish on sale. However I hardly ever see the fish being purchased.

I have no idea the wastage involved in this trade but best guesstimate must be well over 50% if not as high as 70% or more.

Yet supposedly markets are making a profit from this therefore the consumer paying far over the odds!

Over fishing to throw away such a high proportion is immoral but replicates the food wastage thought the middle class world.

Out of control completely!

You must not be going to the markets that I go to. I see many people buying fish and we buy fish to fix at home.

[German Viking]

Why are there similar problems in issuing licenses by govt departments? Driving licenses, aviation licenses, and now fishing licenses?

Due to understaff or under the tables?

It's easier undertable no paper work or work at all.

[German Viking]

If the trawlers are staying out to sea, there was not one whisper about how thew boats are refueled at sea. That is a lynch pin to the whole illegal trade no one seems to be noticing. Cut off the at-sea fueling and the trawlers have to put in to port.

A recent BP article baldly stated that the Gulf here is fished out.

That has to imply most of the fishing is illegal, and the number of unregistered boats seems another proof of that. Further, as others noted, the wholesale boats really feed the monsters, so to speak, being illegal fishing and slave labor.

One poster even said his wife's father went on a fishing trip and never came back.

One big mess.

I guess the wholesale boats bringing the fuel to the trawlers and on the way back carry the fish.

[NCC1701A]

I'd like to share a revelation
that I've had during my time here.
It came to me when I tried to
classify your species. I've
realized that you are not actually
mammals.

Every mammal on this planet
instinctively develops a natural
equilibrium with the surrounding
environment. But you humans do
not. You move to an area and you
multiply and multiply until every
natural resource is consumed and
the only way you can survive is to
spread to another area.

There is another organism on this
planet that follows the same
pattern. Do you know what it is?
A virus.
Human beings are a disease, a
cancer of this planet. You are a
plague.

[German Viking]

I has read all the posts, but IMO one of the biggest problems are the Gung farms, caused they having a big demand on fish. The trawlers catch the smallest fish, caused there is no waste in the fishing industry. What they could not can in they selling to the gung farms. Shut minium 50% of them down and one big problem is solved.