Reaching out today for a better tomorrow

FISHING!

Comment by George Clowes 23 hours ago

Delete Comment Tawasul young environmental journalism trip to the Deira fish market

On the 18th of June, Tawasul had their first “Young Environmental Journalist” trip.
At two in the afternoon, all of the potential environmental journalists, environmental journalists and the founder of Tawasul, Ernst Van Der Poll all met at The Shelter in Al Quoz to watch a screening of the film End of the Line. We learnt a great deal from this film including that Wagamamas used to sell Blue Fin Tuna and now after a bit of gentle persuasion, took it off the menu. After that we went to the fish market in Deira. When we got there the overwhelming smell of fish filled the air. It smelt awful. We walked through into the entrance of the fish market and we all felt so small. There was loads of shouting in Arabic and Hindi so most of us did not understand what the fishmongers were saying; lucky for us Simran saved the day with her knowledge of Hindi. We walked through trying not to slip on the wet floor whilst looking at some of the highly endangered fish which had been caught and killed earlier in the day.
I figured that most of the men would not know that most of these fish will soon be extinct but they proved me wrong. When we asked them questions like “How many fish did you catch today?” and other questions like that, they were not prepared to answer. Next we walked over to where the big sharks were. And believe me, it was not a pleasant sight. There was one shark that stayed in my mind the whole way through, it was a female Bull Shark that must have been giving birth while the fishermen caught it( obviously the fishermen knew that it was big money so they kept it!)What a waste of animal life. But also there were about 50 of all sorts of sharks laid out ready to be finned. I felt that as long as they had their fins and were not cut open that they were somehow still alive. We worked out that over 18250 sharks are caught and slaughtered at Deira fish market every year. Imagine how many sharks are killed throughout the whole world each year? Just before we left we went over to some sharks that had just been brought in. We asked the fish mongers where the sharks were going next and the men stuttered and said Hong Kong which did not seem to make sense because Hong Kong and China’s main trade is shark fins.
For all of us, it had been quite an experience visiting the fish market and it really opened our eyes as to the way our waters are fished for endangered species. Maybe it is simply a lack of knowledge and education or is it just taking place for someone’s financial gain? . Deira Fish Market