OVERFISHING; THE PATH TOWARDS SELF DESTRUCTION


  • Photographer
    JAVIER SANCHEZ-MONGE ESCARDO
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    PERIODISTAS EN ESPAÑOL
  • Date of Photograph
    12/23/2014
  • Technical Info
    1/50 sec; f/13; ISO 320

The image series belongs to a long term project intending to show the broken relationship of the humankind with nature. It progresses slowly from an image that depicts a sustainable and primitive fishing Cambodian community which exposes a close relation between man and his environment, towards the miss understanding of that relationship, in which the sustainable fishing which geared initially the fishermen , turns into an endless aim for profits, concluding into the highly massive industrial fishing, driven exclusively by the aim for profits. Throughout the series, a transition can be observed towards the progressive destruction of nature.

Story

This long-term project analyzes the human being-environmental relationship by exposing the path that follows the sustainable fishing communities which are capable of making a sustainable living without causing damages to the environment and the opposing path of ambition, which leads from sustainable fishing to commercial fishing, in which the main goal of the primitive fishing communities of subsistence and survival, is traded by the ambitious greed for huge profits behind commercial fishing.
The initial primitive Cambodian fishing community, although it has been sustainable and always focused themselves on survival or at the very most on the trade of their surplus fishing products for other goods, lately this stable relationship begun to break. Although their initial daily catch was based on a variety of species which gave time for the different species to replenish themselves, they discovered that the crabs were highly valued at the market, which geared most of their efforts towards crab fishing and a progressive aim for profits. Today Kep (the name of this fishing village) is exclusively known for its crabs.
The following fishing community belongs to Vietnam, and although it was some years ago a sustainable one, for the past years the abundance of fishing species rapidly changed it into a huge fishing location, becoming one of the main suppliers of the Vietnamese fishing markets. Although much of their equipment still remains artisanal, and their boats have a traditional wooden look, their methods have changed and the fishing is being done on a daily basis aimed almost exclusively for profits, which is already contributing to the extinction of some species, such as the extremely rare Banded Eagle Ray on the verge of extinction. For the fishermen it only means a triumphant day , because it weighs close to 190 Kg, which can only mean huge profits.
The image showing the packed sharks at a Taiwanese fishing port, already belongs to a distorted perception of massive fishing exclusively aimed for profits which is carried over in most of the oceanic waters of the world and which is better known as industrial fishing.
Industrial fishing is carried by highly specialized boats which can stay for months out in the ocean, can carry the catches in huge freezers and it is often performed in international waters where the legislation regulating their catches is very hard to enforce.
The last example already reveals the broken man-environmental relationship. A child attempts to eat a piece of crab which his father has captured in far away waters. Although initially this fishing village in the island of Koh Kong in Cambodia had a perfect environmental relationship, the whole village became totally careless about their surroundings. They never provided for any waste management or sewage systems, and they overfished their waters. Today and due to the climate change, this fishing village is slowly sinking below the waters and their quite worried inhabitants are constantly worrying about their need to move elsewhere, but keep postponing it since as they say ;"They have nowhere to go."

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