Problems faced by the ocean and sea fishing industry

Fishing using mosquito nets along the coast of Tanzania. Image credit nytimes.com

• The sea fishing industry in Southern Africa faces a number of problems which include the following.

Over-exploitation of marine resources particularly fish.

• Fishing has increasingly become an important source of income and employment for many people in the region.
• As the number of fishing companies increase and the size of nets become smaller, young fish are also caught, before maturing to breed.
• Overfishing is therefore a common problem in all the fisheries of Southern Africa.
• Of special note are the prawns of the Mozambique Channel and several fish species in the Agulhas fishing bank.

Inappropriate fishing methods

• This includes small mesh nets and dynamite fishing for lobsters are major threat to the sustainability of the fishing industry in Southern Africa.
• Mosquito nets are are often used and these have a particularly small mesh size
• Fish diseases affect fish in most coastal areas.
• These at times wipe out whole species.
• Fish piracy from foreign trawls have over-fished the hake of the coastal of South Africa in recent years.
• In Mozambique the majority of the fishing companies are foreign and operate on license, with little regard for sustainability.
• Change of the habitat has at times affected fish spawning or breeding negatively in some areas.
• In Namibia, dredging along the coastline for diamonds has destroyed the spawning grounds for lobsters.
• In the Agulhas Bank, pollution and siltation have also altered the spawning or breeding environment for most fish species.

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