Driftnets sound relatively harmless as a fishing method. But as any marine biologist will tell you, this gear threatens ocean wildlife. At its November meeting, however, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) could take steps to enforce current international prohibitions on the usage of this damaging practice.
Held on the sea’s surface or just below with floating devices, driftnets can be miles long. Depending on the size of the mesh, they can entangle anything that happens to swim nearby, including sea turtles, whales, swordfish, and tuna.
Most countries recognized that driftnets harm too many marine species (PDF) to remain an acceptable form of fishing. The United Nations banned them on the high seas in 1993, and the European Union followed suit in 2002. In 2003, ICCAT prohibited the use of driftnets to catch tuna and swordfish. Yet an active, illegal driftnet fishery still exists in the Mediterranean, with Italy having one of the largest fleets.
Read the complete opinion piece from PEW.