Summary

For most of the time since humans began fishing (at least 90,000 years ago), fishing technology has been developed with the goal of trying to catch more and more fish of an ever-increasing variety. That is, fishing gear has evolved from the simple harpoons and hooks used thousands of years ago to the industrial factory trawlers of the 20th Century, armed with radar, sonar and satellite navigation. This history has led to the opinion that developments in fishing technology is a major cause of the current over-exploitation of many fish stocks throughout the world.

It has mainly been during the last few decades that attention has shifted towards environmental issues concerned with fishing, causing fishing technologists to focus on more conservation-orientated goals. This began with concerns over the by-catch of charismatic species like dolphins (in tuna purse-seines) and turtles (in shrimp trawls) and, after substantial research by scientists and fishers, various gear-based and operational solutions were developed. While this was occurring, community attention broadened to concerns over the by-catch and discard of not-so-charismatic species like juvenile fish killed incidentally by shrimp trawling. Once again, technologists and fishers addressed this problem by developing various gear-based and operational solutions.

Most recently, however, public concern has broadened once again to encompass a much wider context involving the impacts of fishing (particularly trawling and dredging) on entire ecosystems; i.e., impacts on ALL species affected – not just those species caught, retained or discarded. As a consequence, there have been many calls for ecosystem-based fisheries management to ensure that fisheries operate under the principles of ecologically sustainable development.

Scientists are gradually filling the gaps in our knowledge about how fishing affects whole ecosystems but, because of the scales and complexities involved, such studies are usually difficult, expensive and take a long time. But while this descriptive work is difficult, finding solutions to any identified problems is an even greater challenge, particularly for fishing technologists. While the easiest solutions to such problems involve draconian management strategies like closures, an important question is: Can new technologies reduce impacts of fishing on ecosystems, in a similar way as that done to reduce by-catch problems? – remembering that improvements in fishing technology are viewed as a chief case of such impacts in the first place. Innovations like altering ground-chains, footropes, sweeps and trawl doors have been suggested as possible ways to ameliorate the environmental damage done by trawling but such research is still very much in its infancy. Nevertheless, the recent history of fishing technology is chequered with successfully meeting such challenges, giving us confidence that solutions to this current issue will eventually be developed.