Fortunes fade for fishermen, marine life in Lebanon

By Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey “The sea back in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s was thick with fish and we were the envy of the town. My pockets were always full and I traveled a lot,” says Mustapha Shaalan, 68. Now, like other Lebanese fishermen, he is lucky to make $200 a month, as daily hauls have plunged from 40 kilograms of fish to just one or two. “Over-fishing, pollution and dynamite fishing have all but wiped out marine life in the Mediterranean waters off the 220-kilometer-long Lebanese coast, leaving many of the country’s estimated 8,000 fishermen destitute,” Agence France-Presse reports. Political turmoil, unsustainable fishing practices, industrial pollution, and lack of government oversight have all played a role in the decline of the country’s fisheries — and the plight of its once-flush fishermen. According to AFP, red mullet, grouper, and small barracudas are among the species facing extinction in Lebanon. Imad Saoud, an aquatic scientist at American University of Beirut, blames the fishermen themselves, for utilizing destructive practices like dynamite fishing and blowing air into holes on the ocean floor to flush fish out. “We are destroying our sea, completely and totally,” he says. “And the problem is that the people who benefit the most from the sea — the fishermen — are the people destroying it the most.” But curbs on fishing won’t stop heavy-metal-laden factory sewage from flowing into the water, nor speculators from overdeveloping the coastline. …