Living Marine Resources, Technology and the Extended Economic Zone

Abstract

The net and the hook are among man’s oldest inventions. With some related tools, like tongs, rakes and spears also dating from the dawn of history, they are still the implements with which man renders into his possession what edible, and otherwise useful, bounties the sea has to offer. The hooks were once made of bone, stone, or wood, now they are made of steel, and the nets were made of plant fibres while they are now fashioned of often all too permanent plastic materials. Engineering acuity has not changed the basic concepts of these implements except for making them more durable, and, in the case of nets, larger, deeper and longer. The enormous technical advances in fishing, over the ages though, lie in the ships that take the fishermen to sea, the means by which fish are found, the mode in which fishing tools are deployed, and the ways in which the harvest of the sea is preserved and distributed. These latter aspects of fishing have influenced fishing to such an extent that they are in essence responsible for the extension of man’s domain out to 200 nautical miles from shore.