KARACHI, Nov 14: Nylon and plastic nets have caused mass destruction of marine life through overfishing, as these nets disturb the natural habitat of seabed thus reducing protection from predators for certain species, depleting food supplies, and lowering local biological diversity.

This disturbance in natural food cycle can be catastrophic in the near future, says Syed Aziz Agha of Agha sports fishing, which is probably the only organizer of a number of sports fishing competitions in the country.

Due to overfishing and netting in off season many fish off the coast of Sindh did not reach their adulthood, and the most unfortunate thing was that the majority of the catch end up in least profitable by-product industry such as in production of chicken feed, he added.

He highlighted that despite the fact that Karachi was a coastal city the majority of its residents knew very little about the marine life. He said generally speaking Karachiites were even unaware of fish species found locally or the ones that had high or low fat.

According to UC Nazim Gabopat, fishermen in the past the usually used gillnet, which was sea-environment friendly net, as the mesh size of net was big enough so that underage fish would not get in it.

He said fisherman were aware of movement of different species of fish, so different-sized nets were used for separate catch.

A fisherman said the greed of obtaining maximum benefits led to the introduction of a variety of new nets. These nets were dangerous in that their mesh size was so narrow that even juvenile fish was easily caught in it.

These nets, locally known as Boolo, Katra and Gujjo have been banned by the Sindh and Balochistan governments, but their use continues all along the coast and in offshore fishing.—PPI