China has the world’s largest and farthest-ranging fishing operation, outstripping the next 10 biggest combined, according to what researchers say is the most comprehensive and data-intensive study on the subject.
Ships from China amassed approximately 17 million hours of fishing in 2016, mostly off the southern coast of their home country, but also as far away as Africa and South America. The next-biggest operation is Taiwan’s, with 2.2 million hours of fishing.
The data, collected and analyzed over five years by Global Fishing Watch, a non-profit that tracks fishing operations, represent the most comprehensive look at where, and how often, the world’s fishing boats operate. A study of the data is being published in the journal Science on Thursday.
China is “the most important fishing nation,” Global Fishing Watch research and development director David Kroodsma, who was the study’s lead author, said in an interview. “The extent of the Chinese fleet is even bigger than it seems.”
China’s distant-water fishing fleet, estimated as the world’s largest by Greenpeace, with 2,500 vessels, has not always been welcome in far-off waters. Ships are not allowed to work without permission in the exclusive economic zones of other countries, which extend by UN convention to 200km from shore.
Chinese trawlers were last year seized off Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone and Guinea Bissau over illegal fishing. Argentina’s coast guard in 2016 sank a Chinese trawler that was fishing illegally within its territorial waters.
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the activities of China’s fishing fleets.
The waters off China’s coast, and those of northern and southern Europe, are the most heavily fished, the study found.
Funding sources for the study included the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Wyss Foundation, the Waterloo Foundation and the Adessium Foundation.
The project’s next steps would be to take the data and see how they can be applied to policy and additional research, Kroodsma said.
For instance, researchers are comparing maps of different species of fish with the areas where various fleets are operating.
“People ask, ‘Are we overfishing?’ People ask, ‘What kinds of regulations are good ones versus bad ones? How do fishermen respond to subsidies?’” he said. “All these questions about how we manage the oceans, we can now answer. We can bring data to the table.”
Previous studies have inferred fishing activity rather than directly studied it, he said, but added that the advent of wide-ranging commercial satellite coverage, plus access to data from ships’ transponders, allowed the Global Fishing Watch researchers to paint a much more detailed picture.
“People have been fishing the oceans for over 40,000 years,” Kroodsma said. “But it’s just now that we can really get a good picture. It’s just one of these moments that where we’re taking a huge step forward.”
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the