Qingdao works hard in developing deep-sea fisheries

A Chinese fishing trawler runs along a massive school of fish off the coast of Qingdao, Shandong Province, May 28, 2015.[File Photo provided to China Plus]

In the recent past, people's appetite for sea animals like tuna, Pollock and Euphausia superba, has been growing fast in China. 

Unfortunately, for a long while inshore fishing resources have been on the decline, prompting an expansion into deep sea as a way of transforming the fishing industry. 

In East China's coastal city of Qingdao, this has become a priority for researchers who are now studying ways to establish sustainable ways for deep-sea fishing.Shen Ting takes a closer look.

In June this year, a huge amount of fries of good-quality marine creatures were released to the sea. They included penaeus chinensis, penaeus japonicus, and paralichthys olivaceus species. In fact, since the 1980s, the city of Qingdao has been holding an annual ocean resources enhancement and hatchery program to boost the number of species within their waters.

Wang Jun is a researcher of the Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute.

"The effect of the program is quite obvious for species like penaeus chinensis and portunid, which have a much shorter life span. Our recent studies indicate that more than 95% of the annual penaeus chinensis output in the Bohai Sea stem from the fries we've already released."

Meanwhile, the decline in inshore fishing in China, including at the Yellow and Bohai Seas, has surprisingly been quite fast.

In the 1970s, there used to be more than 400 types of inshore marine fisheries in Shandong province alone; today that number has been reduced to a mere 110 or so. Accordingly, the spectacle of fishermen casting their nets and hauling them back up full of fish has become a rare sight.

Mr. Wang is a boatman in the Laoshan district of Qingdao.

"Nowadays, fishing resources are indeed inadequate. Previously, the amount of fish we'd caught could fill the whole boat, but now the amount can only fill half a boat. Back then, we used to rake in profits as much as 14,000 yuan or 15,000 yuan from the 15,000 kilos of the fish we'd caught; but now with that quantity reduced to half, we really don't have much left after paying wages which are a lot higher these days."

It's not just inshore fishing in China that is declining and becoming even more taxing. Aquaculture has also been encountering all kinds of potential challenges in recent years, due to outdated facilities and equipment, severe regional pollution, deteriorating product quality, not to mention seafood safety issues that have plagued the industry.

While the country's fishing industry faces a myriad of challenges, local authorities have resorted to advanced marine breeding technologies to help tackle the problem.

Li Shumin is an official with the fisheries bureau of China's Ministry of Agriculture.

"We developed the inshore aquaculture but it resulted in some problems. In the past, we used to focus on shoal and inshore areas, where shellfish, prawn, as well seaweed were cultivated. However the space for growth was quite limited. Today, the marine economy is developing quite fast, and the exploitation of the sea has become more prevalent than ever before. The inshore aquaculture density is relatively large; and the stocking density on welfare of fish in marine cages in some regions has begun to show negative effects on the local inshore environment and the quality of aquatic products. Therefore, we have to stretch further into the deep sea."

Currently, scientific and technological advancement has boosted aquaculture to expand from inshore areas to the high seas. "Deep-sea fisheries" has been adopted and applied by many developed countries in their local aquaculture industry.

In simple terms, 'Dark Blue Fishery' relies on breeding within the ships or large-scale floating platforms for aquatic plant culture and other core equipment. It combines the deep-sea cage facilities, fishing vessels; logistics supply ship and other infrastructure facilities to build a whole new industrial chain inside the fishing industry. The new format combines farming, fishing,and processing. It also connects the islands with dry land areas.

Zhuang Zhimeng is deputy director of Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology.

"We began breeding the Antarctic krill, one of the most abundant organisms in Antarctic waters. We are now considering developing artificial propagation and breeding techniques for marine fish in a bid to relieve the pressure of the inshore fishing resources in China. This way, we can achieve some real transformation and upgrading in the whole inshore areas of the Bohai, Yellow, and the East China Seas, as well as the Beibu Gulf and other surrounding waters. That is what we expect from the Dark Blue Fishery."

Over the past 30 years' of development, the number of ocean fishing vessels in China reached about 2500 in 2015, and the output from pelagic fishing exceeded two million tons.

At present, Qingdao has 32 registered pelagic fishing companies, 181 ocean-going fishing vessels and 124 ordinary fishing vessels. Ming Kai, a processing fishing boat from a privately-run business in Qingdao has been to the South Pole to catch the Antarctic krill for local citizens.

Citizen A:We all know the Antarctic krill is one of the most prevalent organisms in the Antarctic waters. It is highly nutritious, without any pollution.

Citizen B: It is purely natural and it is a good gift for parents.

However, insiders admit that China's deep sea fishing is still in the preliminary stages.

Zhang Xianliang is an official with the Fisheries Bureau with China's Ministry of Agriculture. According to Zhang, deep sea fishing in China is confronted with bottlenecks in the following three aspects:

"In the research and development of relevant equipment, China has a big gap with the international advanced level. For example, there are problems in krill's processing equipment and fishing techniques as well as pelagic fishery's fishing ground exploration. In terms of fishing, we don't have adequate data about the fishing grounds and resources. We are especially not clear about the fishing grounds, which would cause trouble in our fishing activities in the next step.

Additionally, although the reserves of the Antarctic krill are very large,equalling about one billion tons, China has inadequate experience concerning how to process and make good use of the Antarctic krill the Chinese fishermen have caught."

In order to break these bottlenecks in the deep-sea fishing, the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology and Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences have jointly launched an alliance, uniting more than 30 national marine scientific research institutions and enterprises to tackle together the major scientific issues and establish key technologies needed in the scientific innovation and development of deep-sea fisheries.

Wu Lixin, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is also the director of the Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology.

"In the process of developing deep-sea fisheries, we have gained a better understanding of both the fishing resources, and the oceanic environment. We hope to build a guide for deep sea fishing, which may provide the all-round scientific and technological support for the development of pelagic fishing."

Insiders point out that deep-sea fisheries enjoy a broad, bright prospect. Besides scientific integration and bottleneck breakthrough, China needs to increase its investment and support for deep-sea fisheries. For instance, the government should work to further reduce the cost of breeding, transportation, processing, and development for deep-sea fishing.

Li Shumin, an official with the fisheries bureau of China's Ministry of Agriculture, speaks again:

"We have enacted guidelines for the transformation of the fishing industry, including the reproduction-structure of certain types of marine species as well as readjusting fishing activities. We are considering preferential policies including allocated expenses and insurance, to support the development of deep-sea fisheries in China."

To date, China has already completed upgraded designs for both the 100-thousand ton-level and the 3,000-ton-level breeding management system. China has also developed the intelligent pneumatic feeding machine, which builds a foundation for the construction of deep-sea breeding platform in the next stage.

In fact, deep-sea fishing is something that the international community is already engaging in. Hence it also appears to be a good opportunity for China to achieve an industrial transformation for the fishing sector. This field particularly needs scientific innovation and support for enterprises as well as financial input. Experts have reached a consensus that only by combining these three elements can we develop deep-sea fishing and achieve a sustainable development in China.

For CRI, I'm Shen Ting.