WWF-Pakistan participated in the World Fisheries Day celebration held on November 21 here in the City. While addressing the participants of seminar Dr Ejaz Ahmad, Senior Director WWF-Pakistan pointed out that the day was celebrated through the world since 1997.
"This year the theme of the World Fisheries Day is to draw attention to over-fishing, habitat destruction and other serious threats to the sustainability of our marine and freshwater resources. He pointed out that natural fisheries resources in Pakistan were facing serious threats of over-fishing as most freshwater bodies had already been over-fished whereas some important marine resources like shrimp, lobster, crab and sharks had also been depleted. "Habitat degradation and pollution are serious threats being faced by the fisheries resources of the country," he added.
He further pointed out that because of globalisation, Pakistani fisheries sector had to comply with legislations and requirements, adding though Pakistan fisheries sector was already complying with European Commission fish quality regulations as well as Turtle Excluder Devices (TED) regulation of USA. He urged to effective control on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing because now internationally it was considered as serious threat. "European Commission has already banned the import of seafood from Kampuchea and Guinea since March 2014 and a ban is looming on Sri Lanka effective from January 2015 because of non-compliance to IUU regulations."
He stressed the need for effective measures for controlling IUU fishing in Pakistan including installation of vessel monitoring system (VMS) and Automatic Identification System (AIS) in Pakistani fishing boats so as to control illegal fishing and to avoid any ban. Muhammad Moazzam Khan, Technical Advisor (Marine Fisheries), said WWF-Pakistan was involved in improvement of fisheries sector and a number of programmes aimed at controlling over-fishing and promoting sustainable fishing in Pakistan. WWF-Pakistan is involved in a number of programmes aim at reducing habitat degradation including plantation of mangroves in areas from where these have been depleted.
WWF-Pakistan has also organised fishermen workshop at Sur, Gwadar where fishermen are informed about increasing threat of over-fishing, pollution and habitat degradation. This seminar was attending by experts from WWF-Pakistan, University of Karachi and local NGOs.-PR
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