Iran's coast guard uses 'battering ram' to stop illegal fishing
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Along Iran's protected Miankaleh Peninsula on the Caspian Sea coastline, fisherman have been illegally fishing for years. Seizing their small boats doesn't appear to be dissuading them. So Iran's coast guard has come up with a radical technique: ram into the vessels at sea, and leave the helpless fishermen to fend for themselves.
Along Iran's protected Miankaleh Peninsula on the Caspian Sea coastline, fisherman have been illegally fishing for years. Seizing their small boats doesn't appear to be dissuading them. So Iran's coast guard has come up with a radical technique: ram into the vessels at sea, and leave the helpless fishermen to fend for themselves.
These images were filmed in the early morning of March 17 by a fisherman in the protected Miankaleh Wetland zone. In the first part of the video, from far away the camera captures an illegal fishing boat. An Iranian coast guard vessel heads toward the boat at full speed before colliding with it. Then the camera focuses on another coast guard vessel: this time, heading straight for the very boat that the cameraman finds himself on. The vessel rams into it. The video stops a few seconds afterwards.
"It's lucky that the incident took place near the coastline"
Hor Mansouri is an environmental activist who was given the video by the fishermen. He manages the blog Miankaleh Watch.
After the boat was struck, the two fishermen who were aboard fell into the water. The coast guard left them there. It was another fishing boat that came to rescue them. It's lucky that the incident took place near the coastline and that the water wasn't too cold. Otherwise, it could've been much worse for them. We were also lucky that the phone memory card belonging to the fisherman who filmed the scene was able to be recovered.
This dangerous method is a recent phenomenon. Officials tasked with regulating fishing have put much more pressure these past few days on illegal fishermen, because lots of articles have been written about the issue.
Local media outlets have discussed in particular the fishermen's new strategy that consists of building boats that they call 'angelikas'. These boats are very cheap and easy to put together. They're built using the inner tubes from tractor wheels that are consequently filled with balls. Then the fishermen add a little motor at the back and a net in the middle. The point is that it costs much less than a real boat. So it's much less serious if their boat is seized.
An 'angelika' boat on a road not far from the Miankaleh peninsula.
Unlike illegal poachers, who equip themselves with guns and don't hesitate to shoot at guards, the fishermen aren't armed. It seems obvious to me that the penalties for being caught should be harsher and that people who destroy our biodiversity should be arrested. But this strategy seems to me to be completely over the top.
Many of these fishermen are members of the Sistani ethnic group, whose livelihoods revolved around fishing until the 1980s in Hamun Lake. The lake completely dried up, so they migrated northeast to find work. Some work in the ports, others took up fishing again despite the ban.
The Miankaleh peninsula.
The 48-kilometre long Miankaleh Peninsula separates Gorgan Bay from the Caspian Sea. The natural reserve is considered to have one of the richest areas of biodiversity on the entire planet. As such, the United Nations declared it a biosphere reserve in 1978.
Post written by France 24 journalist Ershad Alijani.