40% of fishing in the Mediterranean is illegal. Sea Shepherd's direct actions, carried out side by side with authorities, work to protect biodiversity and habitats.
The seas and oceans of the world – which cover 70 per cent of the Earth's surface and provide half the oxygen we breathe every day – are facing a threat that risks undermining their survival more rapidly and invasively than even global warming. An enemy that is causing the depletion of fish stocks, the destruction of habitats and the impoverishment of coastal communities on an unprecedented scale. It is fishing. Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, in particular.
Every year, between 11 and 26 million tonnes of fish are caught illegally around the world, with an economic impact ranging from 10 to 20 billion euros. These figures, which are barely imaginable and in any case likely to be underestimates, are added to an already unsustainable fishing practice characterised by the overexploitation of marine resources (overfishing). More and more fish are being caught, yet there are fewer and fewer fish.
The Mediterranean Sea is obviously not exempt from this problem. On the contrary, precisely because of its rich biodiversity and habitats (it is estimated to be home to more than 17,000 different species), it is a theatre of fishing practices that are contributing to its impoverishment. Indeed, according to European Union data, in the Mediterranean only 9 per cent of fish stocks are harvested sustainably – meaning that nine out of ten species are caught beyond their capacity to regenerate, which is why the populations of most of them decline every year. These figures make the Mediterranean Sea the most overexploited in the world.
We are in a state of extremely dangerous depletion.
Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italia
The waters of the Mediterranean attract fishing vessels from many European and non-European countries and, despite greater efforts at EU level to implement catch regulations and a commitment to sustainable fishing certifications, it remains a territory where illegal practices occur on a daily basis: 40 per cent of the Mediterranean catch is illegal.
It is precisely in these waters that an organisation operating under the banner of ocean defence is at work. It is Sea Shepherd, founded in Canada in 1977 by Captain Paul Watson to defend marine life through direct action. The organisation is well known for its campaigns sailing the Antarctic waters in defence of great marine mammals against Japanese whalers or brutal fishing practices such as the grindadráp.
After years of success, however, the organisation decided to sail into warmer seas, to dedicate itself to the fight against any illegal activity, alongside local authorities, bringing to light what is happening close to our shores.
It was the illegal capture of 800 bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean in 2010 (despite the bluefin tuna being protected because that very year it had come close to extinction, listed on the Iucn Red List) that marked Sea Shepherd's first intervention in the Mediterranean, when they freed the fish through the Blue Rage campaign.
"This gives a sense of how important marine protected areas are," Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italia, explains to us. "That is, how important it is to have places where biodiversity is left in peace and species are given the opportunity to reproduce and rediscover the balance they would otherwise have lost." And it is the United Nations goal for the Ocean Decade with the 30x30 project, namely to protect at least 30 per cent of marine areas by 2030. But in Italy the percentage is still too low, or at least what is protected on paper is often not protected in reality, at sea.
For this reason, Sea Shepherd has decided to act directly. "In 2014 we established ourselves in the Plemmirio marine protected area, in Sicily, and we demonstrated that marine areas can be protected. But you have to go there and do it. How? In collaboration with the authorities. Indeed, together with the Coast Guard and civil society as well, armed with cameras and radios, we carry out surveillance work (patrolling), patrolling every kilometre of the marine area day and night," Morello tells us, recounting the now well-established Operation Siracusa.
"In this way we avoid having blind spots – that is, places where the authorities cannot see where illegal activities are taking place. We communicate with the Guardia di Finanza if it is a land-based offence, with the Coast Guard if it is at sea, or with the environmental police. Over these years we have stopped more than 250 offences in Plemmirio alone."
We have dedicated 30,000 hours of voluntary work to the Italian authorities, to the population, to all of us. This is the great struggle.
Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italia
But Plemmirio is only the beginning. "From here we will also move to other protected areas, which would otherwise risk becoming like banks for thieves: when a marine area flourishes again and becomes repopulated by its biodiversity, it unfortunately becomes prey to poachers and sea criminals."
In addition to surveillance, another extremely important area of Sea Shepherd's work is direct action against illegal nets at sea, in particular Fad (fishing aggregating devices) – nets made of polypropylene twine (a plastic material) that are anchored to the seabed and held up by surface floats. "In 2020, Operation Siso was an incredible success, despite the lockdown. We confiscated 450 kilometres of Fads," Morello tells us. "This operation allowed us to shine a light on the problem."
According to estimates, more than 1.5 million FADs have been released into the sea worldwide over the past sixty years: 700,000 kilometres of plastic lines in the sea. "We don't see them because they're on the seabed. But we still don't know what the impact of destroying the seabed is, because we know it less well than we know the Moon. And to think that the total length of FADs in the sea — 700,000 kilometres — is twice the distance between Earth and the Moon. An astronomical quantity."
We exposed the problem by mapping FAD by FAD, going out to haul them on board in collaboration with the Coast Guard and the Guardia di Finanza. Last year we collected a driftnet six kilometres long in which we found 39 dead animals — tuna, sharks, swordfish. But the last one, the 40th, was a blue shark, still alive, and we set it free.
Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italia
Illegal fishing also brings with it another problem that we often fail to picture, one with devastating consequences for the entire ecosystem: bycatch. That is, the result of non-selective fishing — and above all fishing carried out with illegal equipment and gear — that traps many of the species living in these habitats: from sea turtles to sharks, tuna and swordfish.
What is more, much of the plastic pollution in the sea is often mistakenly attributed to rivers carrying waste from major cities. In reality, most of the plastic in the sea comes from fishing itself.
Illegal fishing is therefore a matter of depletion, pollution, but also human rights. People employed in these activities often have no protections, are denied their rights and find themselves in precarious working conditions. Moreover, the first impact on local fishers is that they are often pushed towards illegality, because otherwise they would catch nothing and thus lose the very livelihood they depend on. And the small heroes who remain within the law, practising traditional and sustainable fishing, are put at a disadvantage.
In recent years, however, awareness of our sea, of the resources it holds and of the need to preserve them has grown ever greater — both among the general public and among those working in the sector. This has been made possible thanks to the tireless commitment of associations that work at sea every day, of institutions that place the protection of the sea on political agendas, of companies that adopt more virtuous fishing practices in respect of resources, and of individuals who take action. The path has been set, and every part of society has its role to play.
"We must find sustainable systems that hold not only for today, but for the future," Morello continues. "The battle to save the sea is here. From overfishing to illegal fishing, rising temperatures, acidification, microplastics, the colonisation of alien species. We have to fight it ourselves."
We must design a society of the future in which the ocean becomes our breath.
Andrea Morello, president of Sea Shepherd Italia
With one eye on the future, but both hands in the present. "The United Nations have launched the decade for the study of the sea. But policies must act now, not only at an educational level. We must pursue great conservationism, through protected areas, and then truly protect them. But not only through the authorities — we cannot delegate it to them alone. We must do it ourselves too. Collaboration between civil society and authorities will be the key. We are the heroes of tomorrow. Heroes through our actions, through our choices, which must no longer be about asking others to act, but about acting ourselves. We must reach a point where we protect the sea with our every gesture."
