Imagine that you’ve just arrived at your holiday destination. You’ve checked in, got rid of the baggage (no, not the wife; the suitcase!) and you’re ready to hit the town. As the heat beats down from the afternoon sun, you decide to take a load off and treat yourself to a leisurely lunch and perhaps sample the local culinary delights - which if you’re visiting southern Europe, could well be that quintessential Mediterranean dish, swordfish…

But would you order this meal if you knew that you could be contributing to capture and death of thousands of marine species? If you knew that many Mediterranean swordfish were caught using illegal driftnets that are commonly known as ‘walls of death’ due to the fact that they indiscriminately capture anything unfortunate to swim into them? And that the bycatch estimates for these unfortunate species, which include whales, dolphins, turtles and sharks, number in the hundreds of thousands each year?

FACTS
 Up to one-quarter of Mediterranean swordfish are caught using illegal driftnets, which have been completely banned in the Med since 2003.
 Nets can be tens of miles long and continue to be used by an estimated 600 vessels from Italy, France, Morocco and Turkey (deliberately flouting EU law and ignoring international agreements)
 The main known cause of decline of sperm whales in the Mediterranean is accidental capture in illegal swordfish driftnets. 1000’s of dolphins are also killed each year, many of them less than a year old.
 In the Mediterranean, up to 70% of the reported swordfish catch is made up of juveniles, many of which will have never spawned. This jeopardises the viability of sustainable future stocks.

What you can do:

Some ‘green’ choices are difficult to make, but the solution to the end of driftnets is easy – if there is no market for the fish, then the practise will stop. As a responsible holiday maker all you have to do is simply choose not to eat swordfish when you dine out this summer!

The Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) is campaigning internationally to end illegal, unregulated and unreported or ‘pirate’ fishing. To read our report entitled “Illegal Driftnetting in the Mediterranean” and for further information please go to: www.ejfoundation.org. Interested in our campaigns or want to help? Email info@ejfoundation.org.