wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  Channel NewsAsia 19 Nov 05
'We love that crab!' -- Russian threatens to ban crab fishing

BUSAN, South Korea: A Russian governor called for a five-year ban on fishing of the coveted giant crab in Russian waters in response to poaching by Japanese and South Korean fishermen.

"We have a very big problem here -- fishing," Sergei Darkin, governor of the Primorskiy region in far-eastern Russia, told reporters at an Asia-Pacific summit here, referring to illegal crabbing in the region.

"A large amount of fish resource is going to South Korea and, apparently, Japan. We need to solve this problem. If we don't, we will lose the entire crab population, as has happened in Japan."

Darkin said he had in recent days submitted a proposal to the Russian federal government calling for a full five-year moratorium on crab fishing in Russian waters.

Crab, especially the giant Kamchatka crab as it is known in Russia, are highly sought after by seafood brokers in the lucrative markets of South Korean and Japan. Under current regulations, fishermen from both countries are permitted to catch crab up to fixed quotas in Russia's Pacific Ocean territorial waters where they were once abundant. Russia has however become increasingly irritated by alleged systematic and extreme violations of those quotas.

Darkin described how on a recent visit to Japan a Russian minister was seated opposite his Japanese counterpart, who decided on crab for dinner.

When the plate arrived, the Russian official had undiplomatically pointed at his host's plate and stated: "You see that crab? We love that crab," a not-so-subtle reference to the dispute.
links
Related articles on Global issues: biodiversity
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com