[ad_1]
Pirates more often attack in waters where illegal and destructive techniques are used to catch fish, according to a new study.
Destructive fishing practices by industrial fleets and illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing can destroy local ecosystems and reduce catches by small-scale fishermen. As a result, fishermen may turn to piracy to earn money and keep these fleets away from their waters.
“The loss of income means they have to find something else to do,” study lead author Raj Desai, professor of international development at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, told Live Science. Fishermen have skills that are very transferable to piracy, such as how to navigate and operate boats, so it is very easy for them to become pirates, Desai said.
And while piracy is undeniably bad, it can have an ecosystem benefit if it ends up deterring illegal and destructive fishing.
Related: The most notorious hackers of all time
Modern pirates attack ships by boarding them with weapons and stealing crew and cargo, or by holding them for ransom, Previously reported Live Science. These attacks endanger traders and seafarers and threaten shipping routes, according to the International Maritime Bureau of the International Chamber of Commerce, but the specific factors behind maritime piracy are not yet fully understood.
To test their hypothesis that fishermen might turn to piracy in response to destructive industrial fleets, the researchers divided the entire ocean into cells, or spaces, each measuring around 111 square kilometers. Then, they compared more than 3,200 pirate attacks carried out in each cell between 2005 and 2014 with harmful and illegal fishing practices, taking into account various factors, such as the likelihood of piracy spreading from area to area. another. They described their findings on Wednesday (February 24) in the newspaper PLOS One.
Researchers have found more attacks on cells where industrial fleets destroy habitat with methods such as bottom trawling, in which fishermen drag a large net along the ocean floor and use chemicals and explosives to kill fish. Such practices produce very high bycatch – animals of no commercial value that are pulled alongside the intended catch, Desai said.
“These are very effective methods of harvesting a lot of fish but [are] often killing many species which are then discarded, and [that] can have quite detrimental effects on the health and sustainability of fish stocks, “Desai said. Small-scale fishing economies, mainly serving local consumption, rely on healthy fish stocks and are often found in remote areas off the coasts of developing countries with few alternatives Piracy can provide fishermen with higher and more stable income as fish stocks decline.
This is why it is important to tackle the source of the problem and control the hacking, Desai said. “Global anti-piracy efforts have focused excessively on interdiction and law enforcement efforts and have paid proportionately less attention to the root of the problem, namely loss of livelihood and loss of life. vulnerability of artisanal fisheries in developing countries, ”Desai said.
Other factors are also at play; for example, piracy is more common in the waters off the coasts of unstable countries with fragile governments.
“This is a very interesting study which suggests that destructive and illegal fishing can increase maritime piracy through two mechanisms: one in which those affected by the expected loss of income due to illegal fishing turn to piracy, [and] a second foreseeing that turning to piracy could help deter such illegal fishing, ”said Ursula Daxecker, associate professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, in an email.
“Although the study cannot directly test these mechanisms, and presents correlations rather than causal evidence linking IUU fishing and piracy, systematically documenting how different forms of crime occur in the same places is a valuable contribution,” Daxecker said.
Originally posted on Live Science.
Source link
