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China Focus: Fishermen leave troubled waters behind by going ashore

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E-mail Xinhua, November 27, 2020

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CHENGDU, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Yan Zhenghua misses the days of fishing in the Yangtze River, China's longest river.

"The fish from the Yangtze tastes fresh and tender, not like that from inland ponds, which tastes like mud," said Yan, 65.

Gone are the days when he could fish at random in the Yangtze River with his fishing jigs - the traditional equipment made of up to 100 sharp, closely connected steel hooks.

Last October, he handed in all his fishing equipment to the government to be destroyed, including a 6-meter-long rowboat, a 10-meter-long ship powered by diesel, and his fishing net and hooks, in exchange for 160,000 yuan (24,320 U.S. dollars) in compensation.

China imposed a fishing ban in 332 conservation areas along the Yangtze River on Jan. 1 this year.

The fishing moratorium means that fishermen like Yan will not be able to fish in the areas where they live.

Yan lives in Xinxing Village in the city of Yibin, southwest China's Sichuan Province. The village sits near Fuxikou at the mouth of the local Huangsha River that flows into the Yangtze. Fuxikou is known for its rich sturgeon resources. Every summer, when the water rises in the Yangtze and backflows into the Huangsha start, masses of sturgeons would swarm to the area, followed by scores of fishing boats. For generations, locals depended on fishing to make a living.

However, these days, Yan has found a new job. On the once-bustling Fuxikou wharf where vendors touted fish to customers, his main responsibility is recording the arrival and departure time of passenger ships and the number of passengers. Most of the passengers are those from Chinese localities or even from overseas, who come to visit the area from a tourist attraction about 4 km upstream.

Yan's life is part of a broader picture. China's 10-year fishing ban, starting from Jan. 1, 2021, will cover all the central waters of the river. According to previous estimates, the full-scale ban is likely to affect more than 113,000 fishing boats and nearly 280,000 fishermen in ten provincial regions along the river.

FISHING TRADITION IN TROUBLED WATERS

Fuxikou used to be one of the areas with the most plentiful resources of fish in the upper reaches of the Yangtze. In the city of Yibin, local fishermen touted the area as one with "500 kg of Chinese sturgeons and 5,000 kg of Chinese paddlefish."

"I caught a 7-meter-long Chinese paddlefish in 1993, which weighed more than 100 kg," Yan Zhenghua said. "I used two oxen carts to carry it."

In his four-decade-long fishing career, Yan saw more than 20 fish weighing at least 50 kg each and caught three himself.

Since becoming a fisherman in 1976, Yan had always used fishing jigs to catch fish. He transformed the rusty steel wires he picked from the streets into hundreds of sharp hooks and connected them with ropes. He usually placed the connected hooks close to the water bottom where fish abounded. A fish would usually struggle when it got hooked, but this would cause more hooks to puncture its body until it gave up. Fishing jigs were perfect for catching fish weighing more than 1 kg each, such as carp, which swim deep in the water, Yan said.

Compared with a fishing net, fishing jigs cost much less but posed higher risks, he said.

"When you retrieved the fishing jigs, the fish would struggle, and you could get cut by the hooks easily," he said. "I once impaled my fingers. If the hooks got entangled with your body, it would be worse."

Yan referred to his fishing career as "making a living in a bowl full of blood."

The fishing boom along the Yangtze failed to last. Beginning in the 1980s, the loss of fish habitats, pollution, and rampant fishing caused fishing resources to wither, and some species went extinct.

Wei Qiwei is a research fellow with the Yangtze River Fisheries Research Institute under the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences. He participated in a survey on fish resources and the environment in the Yangtze River from 2017 to 2020. The survey found that about a quarter of the fish species native to the Yangtze River was nowhere to be found, including the Chinese paddlefish, which could have gone extinct, Wei said.

"Many types of fish are endangered and are in dire need of protection," Wei added.

The disappearance of the fish also forced fishermen to make the holes of their fishing nets smaller.

"A hole of a fishing net used to be as big as four fingers, but beginning in 2016, each net hole was as small as a little finger," Yan said.

Yan's fishing jigs, which were suitable to catch big fish, often failed to catch any fish within a week, or even half a month.

"I became frustrated and feared about the future," he said, adding that if it were not for the fishing ban, the Yangtze River could be "one with just water, no fish left."

"Catching fish and shrimps could not last long," he said. "Those who object to the fishing ban did not see the future clearly: if they continued to fish, there would be nothing left."

GOING ASHORE

The fishing ban is good for the environment, but many fishermen don't find it easy to reinvent themselves.

According to a 2019 survey, more than half of the fishermen along the Yangtze were aged 50 and above, and most of them had only attended primary school or middle school. Many have low pensions.

"The biggest problem is how to help them restart a life and how to help them settle down," said Shi Guoqing, a professor of Hohai University. "We also need to help them merge with society and join the social-economic system."

Shi said a variety of measures are needed.

Authorities are taking action in this regard.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs urged Chinese localities to issue concrete measures to include the former fishermen in the social security system. It asked local authorities to make sure that each family of former fishermen will have at least one person employed.

Currently, local governments in China are helping former fishermen to establish cooperatives for aquaculture and leisure agriculture, providing free training, and setting up public-interest posts to broaden the employment channels for them.

Yan Zhenghua said that when the fishing ban is lifted ten years later, he will be too old to go fishing.

"But I do hope that I will get to have a bite of the fish caught from the Yangtze River by then," he said, as he stares at the river at the Fuxikou wharf. "It will be another story." Enditem