Over-fishing Bycatch issue

As we known the world are starting growing up very fast. Food demanding also increase double in this recently year.

AS  Cambodia's population grows, freshwater fisheries are increasingly under threat, with sustained over-fishing putting the Kingdom's long-term food security in jeopardy.

The total freshwater fish catch climbed to over 395,000 tonnes. But a decline in the average size of fish species on the Tonle Sap lake has scientists worried about the future of this vital source of protein for millions of the Kingdom's rural poor.

This is the one of the most intensely fished freshwater areas in the world a research scientist at the Phnom Penh office of the World Fish Centre, an international fisheries research institute.

The 2.6 million tonnes of fish caught annually in the Mekong Basin represent seven times more than catches of the Northern American inland fisheries sector and more than 10  times the entire fish catch in Australia.

According to Baran, sustained population growth is putting too much pressure on the Tonle Sap's fisheries which are now, approaching their highest sustainable limit. "Between 1940 and 1995, fish production increased twofold, but population increased threefold. Cambodia's reliance on fish as a source of affordable protein makes it particularly vulnerable to a reduction in fish catches. "[Cambodia] is a country where fish production is three times pig production and 20 times chicken production. If it loses fisheries, the agriculture sector will not be able to catch up.

Illegal fishing spikes

A recent rise in levels of illegal fishing has also added to the strain on the nation's fisheries, said Chhom Davy, director of the Fisheries Action Coalition Team. "According to reports from commune chiefs around the Tonle Sap, illegal fishing is on the rise," she said, noting that the activity is spurred on by collusion between poachers and local authorities.

Middlemen pay officials each month so they can use illegal fishing gear in both the closed season and the open season.

Cambodia's 2006 Fisheries Law bans commercial fishing from June 1 to September 30 north of Phnom Penh, and from July 1 to October 31 in the south, in order to give fish populations a chance to reproduce and replenish.
The law was difficult to enforce in a country as fish-dependent as Cambodia.

Family fishing is free and open all year round, But the Fisheries Law only allows families to use very small fishing gear. The problem is that people complain they cannot survive and use larger gear in the spawning season."

So Nam, deputy director of the government's Inland Fisheries Research and Development Institute, agreed that preventing overfishing is tricky as the law says what sort of [fishing] gear is legal and what is illegal, but we cannot control all the people using hundreds of types of fishing gear.

Addressing Overfishing Issue in ASEAN

Reversing the trend

To combat illegal fishing and promote sustainable fishing practices, the government is shifting its decision-making and law enforcement efforts to the local level.

Fisheries Administration should focusing its efforts on educating fishermen about the importance of sustainable harvesting.

Education is very important. One of the aims is to strengthen the community by building the capacity of the community, teaching people to do their own management, conservation and planning.

Over 500 "community fisheries" in Cambodia have been established so far, acting as focal points for law enforcement, conservation and the adoption of new fish cultivation methods

We should conduct a lot of training with the local and international authorities to educate them not to support illegal activities. We call meetings with officials and provide fuel oil so local workers can help deal with illegal fishing.

One innovation has been to encourage the cultivation of fish in Cambodia's extensive rice paddies.

Because we have a lot of rice fields , farmers can grow fish in them and then harvest both. And they can do it without any chemical fertilizer.

We should keeping our catch at the maximum level of 400,000 tonnes per year, and increasing production by growing fish. Now there are more large-scale [aquaculture] investments.

Please see more slide about Overfishing that make you more understanding about it.

http://www.slideshare.net/gulxari/over-fishing-by-abdal-rahman-malik

Overfishing Issue not only in Cambodia but all around the world, here are some picture about overfishing around the world.

Megafish, Cambodia

Fishermen pose with a giant carp caught in the Tonle Sap River in Cambodia. The fish was reeled in, then released, as part of the National Geographic Society's Megafishes Project—a three-year effort by National Geographic grantee Zeb Hogan to document the largest species of freshwater fish. All of Hogan's megafishes are at least 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length or 220 pounds (100 kilograms). Many of the species he studies are threatened or endangered due to overfishing, development, and pollution.

Bycatch, Gulf of California

Dead guitarfish, rays, and other species are tossed from a shrimp boat in the Gulf of California, Mexico. Tons of fish are thrown back to sea every year. International attention to wasteful fishing methods have resulted in relatively new net and hook designs, which prevent some bycatch. "Overfishing has been historically [the] oldest and [most] major threat to ocean life today," says National Geographic fellow Enric Sala. "And because of the mismanagement [and inefficiencies] of fisheries, the fishing industry loses $50 billion a year," according to a 2008 World Bank report, adds Sala.

Fish Market, Tasmania

Marine farming has rapidly expanded in Tasmania since the 1990s, with Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout being the most popular stocks. Strict quarantine controls on the importation of salmonid products help to protect the fish farming industry from serious diseases.

Carp Farm, Poland

Fishermen catch tons of live carp at a fish farm near Warsaw, Poland. Farming fish remains a controversial practice, as diseases and parasites that plague fish raised in confined pens can often infect nearby wild stocks. However, in a world with limited fish supplies, farms also help to reduce pressures on natural populations.

Cod Caught in a Net, Gulf of Maine

Cod and other commercial ground fish are caught in a net in the Gulf ofMaine. Our appetite for fish is wreaking havoc on aquatic populations worldwide. The conservation group World Wildlife Fund predicts that if cod fisheries continue to be fished at current rates, there will be no cod left by 2022. "Seventy-five percent of fisheries are overfished," says marine biologist Enric Sala. "If nothing changes, all fisheries will have collapsed by 2050." The solution, says Sala—a National Geographic Society fellow—is involving all levels of society, from consumers to policy makers

Tuna Net, Southern Ocean

A purse seiner net is used to haul tuna to coastal feeding pens in what is sometimes called the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean. Giant bluefin tuna, treasured for sushi, can grow to 12 feet (3.7 meters) in length, weigh 1,500 pounds (680 kilograms), and live for 30 years. They once migrated by the millions throughout the Atlantic Basin and the Mediterranean Sea, but are now experiencing significant declines. By the mid-1990s, stocks of southern bluefin tuna had been fished to between 6 and 12 percent of their original numbers in the South Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Massive influxes of tourists, often to a relatively small area, have a huge impact. They add to the pollution, waste, and water needs of the local population, putting local infrastructure and habitats under enormous pressure. For example, 85% of the 1.8 million people who visit Australia's Great Barrier Reef are concentrated in two small areas, Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands, which together have a human population of just 130,000 or so.

Tourist infrastructure
In many areas, massive new tourist developments have been built - including airports, marinas, resorts, and golf courses. Overdevelopment for tourism has the same problems as other coastal developments, but often has a greater impact as the tourist developments are located at or near fragile marine ecosystems. For example:

• mangrove forests and seagrass meadows have been removed to create open beaches

• tourist developments such as piers and other structures have been built directly on top of coral reefs

• nesting sites for endangered marine turtles have been destroyed and disturbed by large numbers of tourists on the beaches

Careless resorts, operators, and tourists
The damage doesn't end with the construction of tourist facilities.

Some resorts empty their sewage and other wastes directly into water surrounding coral reefs and other sensitive marine habitats.

Recreational activities also have a huge impact. For example, careless boating, diving, snorkeling, and fishing have substantially damaged coral reefs in many parts of the world, through people touching reefs, stirring up sediment, and dropping anchors.

Marine animals such as whale sharks, seals, dugongs, dolphins, whales, and birds are also disturbed by increased numbers of boats, and by people approaching too closely.

Tourism can also add to the consumption of seafood in an area, putting pressure on local fish populations and sometimes contributing tooverfishing.

Collection of corals, shells, and other marine souvenirs - either by individual tourists, or local people who then sell the souvenirs to tourists - also has a detrimental effect on the local environment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfg7f2HXSb8

Floating towns
The increased popularity of cruise ships has also adversely affected the marine environment. Carrying up to 4,000 passengers and crew, these enormous floating towns are a major source of marine pollution through the dumping of garbage and untreated sewage at sea, and the release of other shipping-related pollutants.