{"id":16864,"date":"2026-04-13T22:49:51","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T20:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/?p=16864"},"modified":"2026-10-24T14:59:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T12:59:03","slug":"red-sea-overfishing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zawia3.com\/en\/red-sea-overfishing\/","title":{"rendered":"One Kilogram of Fish Can Cost the Sea Ten: The Toll of Red Sea Overfishing"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Red Sea, <\/span>fishermen<\/span><\/a> rescued a whale shark from their nets and returned it to the water. The story spread on social media under the name “Bahloul”, but what no one has rescued is the sea itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

What happened with “Bahloul” is a<\/span> symptom<\/span><\/a> of a crisis that Egyptian waters in the Red Sea are going through. In Foul Bay, south of Marsa Alam, where a pristine nature reserve lies that includes the Zabargad Islands and Ras Banas,<\/span> overfishing<\/span><\/a> operations continue without pause.<\/span><\/p>\n

More serious still, the Fish Resources Authority and the Ministry of Environment face accusations<\/a> of granting licences for commercial fishing within the biosphere zone of the Gebel Elba reserve, which opened the door for trawling and shanshoula boats<\/a> coming from Suez to push southwards, amid fears of the seabed being dredged and coral reefs destroyed, and the resulting damage to diving tourism and sport fishing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In El Gouna, on the sidelines of the <\/span>International <\/span><\/a>Red Sea Fishing Championship, one of the largest fishing championships in the Middle East, environmental activists <\/span>observed<\/span><\/a> a striking scene: boats loaded <\/span>with sakhawi cages<\/span><\/a>, metal baskets that work as traps to catch squid and fish and are banned by law, moving freely in front of the harbours and launch points. This raised serious questions about the absence of oversight, at a time when overfishing in the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea never stops.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although the Red Sea and the Gulf of Suez produce only 8.8%<\/a> of Egypt’s total wild fisheries, which amount to about 400,000 tonnes a year, what is destroyed in them is far greater than what is caught. In the ports of Ataqa and Suez alone, about 160 boats<\/a> operate, combining two of the most destructive types of fishing gear: trawling, which drags huge cone-shaped nets that sweep the seabed without distinguishing between species or sizes, and shanshoula, which uses intensely bright lights to attract surface fish and catch them at night.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to a study issued by the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries in 2022, trawling in the Gulf of Suez causes discards amounting to 56.1% (that is, the proportion of marine organisms that are caught incidentally and thrown back dead), while in the shrimp fisheries of the Red Sea this rises to between 50 and 90%. Mohamed Kaddah, head of the Egyptian Fishing Federation, estimates the discard rate on trawlers at about 70%, and on shanshoula boats at between 30 and 50%.<\/span><\/p>\n

All of this happens despite the existence of explicit decisions<\/a> imposing bans. In mid-May 2024, Red Sea Governor’s Decision No. 266 was issued, together with South Sinai Governor’s Decision No. 129, imposing a complete fishing ban for five years in most areas of the Red Sea south of Gebel El-Zeit, including Foul Bay and the areas extending southwards and the gulfs of Aqaba and Suez, while allowing fishing only within the Gulf of Suez to the north, with the exception of areas inside nature reserves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Between May and mid-July 2024, the trading and sale of Red Sea fish in markets and restaurants <\/span>was banned<\/span><\/a>, and a ban was imposed on shrimp fishing in threatened areas during the breeding season. In 2025, the restrictions were extended to include a ban on trawling outside the Gulf of Suez from mid-April to mid-July, while the ban on shanshoula continued until September.<\/span><\/p>\n

But what provoked the sport fishing sector was that the ban covered its boats, its competitions and pleasure yachts, while the sector’s representatives believe that the enforcement mechanisms lack balance between environmental protection and the sustainability of tourism activities linked to the sea.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mohamed Kaddah, head of the Egyptian Fishing Federation, acknowledges that the ban decision is indeed being enforced, and that violating boats are stopped and their licences withdrawn. But commercial fishermen demanded that the ban be extended to include sport fishing and amateur fishing as well, which happened for a time, before the Foul area was opened to them as an alternative. The problem is that reaching it from Ataqa port in Suez takes two days of continuous sailing, which makes the trip costly and unviable, so some boats end up fishing along the coast, passing Hurghada, Safaga and Marsa Alam.<\/span><\/p>\n

In diagnosing the core of the crisis, Kaddah does not hesitate: trawlers and shanshoula boats are the problem. A trawler works like a bulldozer sweeping the seabed, and between 70 and 80% of what it catches is returned to the sea dead because it has no commercial value, and these are precisely the organisms that maintain the biological balance of the Red Sea. As for shanshoula, it catches surface fish and picks up fry along with them, and sometimes operates within the bounds of nature reserves.<\/span><\/p>\n

He tells Zawia3: “These practices kill the fry and prevent the sea from recovering, and their continuation will wipe out the fish and the coral reefs on which diving tourism depends”, adding that Foul Bay, close to the Gebel Elba reserve, is subjected to intensive fishing that contradicts the state’s plans to establish investment projects in the Ras Banas area.<\/span><\/p>\n

The picture is completed by striking figures: 160 boats set out from Ataqa port alone, whose licences sell for between EGP 10 million and EGP 15 million, and some owners sell the licence separately from the boat. Kaddah goes further, linking overfishing to the phenomenon of sharks approaching the beaches, attributing it to the depletion of the fish they feed on, and calling for tracking systems to be installed on commercial fishing boats to monitor their movements and prevent violations.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Recommended reading: <\/b>“Ras Hankorab”: A Struggle Between Money and the Environment in the Wadi El Gemal Reserve<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

Pressure on the Ecosystem<\/b><\/h1>\n

Dr Sahar Mehanna, professor of fish population dynamics at the National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries, does not differ in her diagnosis of the crisis, but she adds a social dimension to it that makes the solution more complicated. Trawling, although it is one of the most destructive fishing methods for the marine environment worldwide, and many countries have banned it or replaced it with less harmful methods, remains in Egypt a source of livelihood for thousands of fishermen who have known nothing else for decades. For this reason, she does not call for abolishing it entirely, but for regulating it strictly and introducing technical improvements that reduce its impact, along with reducing the number of boats and specifying the permitted fishing areas.<\/span><\/p>\n

The figures reflect the fragility of the social picture: the average income of an artisanal fisherman does not exceed<\/span> 54% <\/span><\/a>of the average income of Egypt’s rural population. And although artisanal fishing accounts for between<\/span> 70 and 80%<\/span><\/a> of total activity, industrial and commercial fishing, which accounts for no more than<\/span> 20 to 30%<\/span><\/a> of the volume of the catch, takes more than half of the revenues.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mehanna explains that trawling is already banned in coral reef areas, since the nature of the rocky seabed inevitably tears the nets, and that the areas where trawling is permitted are limited to the Gulf of Suez and Foul Bay in the south, where the seabed is sandy or muddy. But she warns of a graver danger: other fishing methods practised within the reef zone, such as trammel nets and gill nets used to catch hook bait, which are banned by law but practised out of sight of the authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

She tells Zawia3: “The abundance of violations against the limited number of seizures has encouraged some fishermen to persist, and even sport fishing and amateur fishing have in some cases turned into an unregulated commercial activity as a result of the absence of oversight.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, she draws attention to the danger of ghost nets, gear lost in the depths of the sea that turns into silent traps, killing turtles and dolphins by suffocation or by impeding their movement. The problem of bycatch accompanying shrimp trawling also stands out, as non-target species of small fish, fry and organisms of ecological importance that are not eaten as food are caught, a problem that worsened when this catch turned into a commodity sold to fish farms or used in the manufacture of fishmeal, so that it acquired a market that encourages its continuation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Egyptian laws prohibit<\/a> catching or harming protected marine species, among them the whale shark, sea turtles and some species of sharks and dolphins, based on Environment Law<\/a> No. 4 of 1994 (amended by Law 9\/2009) and Natural Protectorates Law<\/a> No. 102 of 1983. It is also prohibited<\/a> to use illegal fishing gear such as sakhawi (non-compliant cages or nets), nets with small mesh openings, and fishing with dynamite or electricity, in addition to the ban on catching fry and immature fish.<\/p>\n

Article 31 of Law<\/a> No. 146 of 2021 promulgating the Law on the Protection and Development of Lakes and Fish Resources provides for a ban on catching, collecting, transporting or possessing the fry of fish, turtles, marine snails and other aquatic organisms from the lakes or their shores or from any other bodies of water, except with a licence from the Lakes and Fish Resources Protection and Development Agency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mehanna stresses that heavy industrial fishing gear, such as trawling and shanshoula, poses a danger to coral reefs if used outside the areas designated for it, yet she believes that the problem does not lie in the type of method itself, but in failure to comply with technical and legal specifications, especially regarding the size of mesh openings, pointing out that the use of narrow-mesh nets leads to catching small, sexually immature sizes and aggravates the phenomenon of overfishing.<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, she points to the importance of studying the “tourism carrying capacity” of threatened ecological areas, to set a ceiling on the daily tourism activities an area can absorb without harming its resources, noting that exceeding this limit leads to the deterioration of reefs, whether through the random anchoring of boats or the undisciplined practices of some visitors, and explaining that the reef environment in the Red Sea is one of the richest fish environments in the world, home to more than a thousand species, and that its destruction not only threatens biodiversity but is also reflected in the tourism sector.<\/span><\/p>\n

The professor of fish dynamics believes that rational management of fisheries rests on regulation, not absolute prohibition, and on relying on scientific foundations that balance protecting the environment with guaranteeing fishermen’s livelihoods, in a way that integrates the roles of scientific research, the executive authorities and the users of marine resources, so as to preserve them for future generations.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr <\/span>Alaa El-Haweet<\/b>, former dean of the College of Fisheries Technology and Aquaculture at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport, agrees with her on the environmental impact of trawlers and on the fact that they are not alone responsible for the deterioration of the marine environment in the Red Sea, which he attributes mainly to pressure on the ecosystem as a result of intensive urban expansion in tourist villages, land reclamation and coastal construction works, and the discharge of some waste into the sea, in addition to the large increase in the numbers of pleasure yachts and diving trips, considering that these factors combined have had a severe impact on the deterioration of coral reefs.<\/span><\/p>\n

He tells Zawia3: “The number of boats, whether commercial or recreational, and the multiplying numbers of sea trips and yachts compared with what was planned in the 1990s, exceed the environmental carrying capacity of the area, which reflects the existence of overfishing and unregulated tourism at the same time, causing environmental deterioration.”<\/span><\/p>\n

He adds: “The file of marine environmental deterioration must be addressed from a comprehensive perspective that includes commercial fishing, recreational fishing, tourism expansion and urban activities, rather than being confined to one particular group.” He also believes that conflicting mandates among the bodies concerned with the fishing sector are a major obstacle, as the decisions of several ministries and governorates overlap, creating a state of regulatory inconsistency, whereas a single body should be empowered to manage the fisheries file in full, with a unified legislative and executive reference, and the security agencies should be obliged to enforce the laws it issues.<\/span><\/p>\n

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