Nearly 60,000 drifting fish aggregating devices (FADs) enter Polynesian waters each year. Deployed by industrial fishing vessels, these fish rafts often end up abandoned and washed ashore on reefs. Polynesia, which uses only anchored FADs, is hosting an international workshop at the Cesec (Center for Economic and Social Studies) bringing together Pacific Island countries, experts, and fishing professionals to develop concrete solutions to this “ecological disaster” : tracking of the tags, recovery at sea, financing, and the polluter-pays principle.
They are neither Polynesian nor wanted, yet they arrive by the thousands. Every year, nearly 60,000 drifting FADs – these artificial rafts used by industrial purse seiners (fishing vessels with purse seines) to concentrate fish – drift for months before ending up in our waters. A discreet but devastating tide of fish aggregating devices (FADs) for reefs, coastlines, and marine species.
