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Many fishermen are themselves concerned, especially when quota cuts bring home the need for fisheries management. Some have taken their own initiative to avoid bycatches. In the Gulf of Maine, fishermen threatened with a gill net ban as a result of increasing bycatches of harbor porpoise joined forces with conservationists and researchers to form the Harbor Porpoise Working Group. They collaborated with scientists to develop electronic 'pingers' which they hope will warn porpoise away from the nets. Other approaches also use modern technology. In 1994 the roe rock sole fishery in the Bering Sea was closed early, at a cost of millions of dollars to fishermen, when they exceeded permitted bycatch levels for red king crab. This spurred trawlermen into tackling the issue themselves through a voluntary scheme.

This particular industry is already heavily regulated and each boat carries an observer who checks the catch. It isn't much more effort to enter the day's landings into a small computer and send them via electronic mail and a mobile phone link to a company called Sea State in Seattle. There, the bycatch data is compiled into maps which are faxed or e-mailed back to the vessels, warning fishermen of bycatch hot-spots a week before the government update is released. The system is very effective, and reduced the 1995 bycatch of Bristol Bay red king crab to 15 per cent of the permitted level. However, it works primarily because the industry is already monitored. Without the official observers there would be no incentive for individual boats to keep their bycatch down. In the Gulf of Alaska and the Bering Sea just a few boats consistently account for most of the bycatch.The names of the best and worst boats have even been published on the Internet in an attempt to create peer pressure among fishermen.

One way around the issue is to make bycatch count against quotas, as happens in Norway. A tough enforcement system and temporary closures of fishing grounds when bycatch gets too high has maintained Norwegian stocks in a relatively healthy state compared with EU fisheries.

In Britain, the Federation of Highland Fishermen has suggested seasonally closing fishing grounds which are nurseries for young commercial fish in order to help protect dwindling stocks. The EU already has some temporary closed boxes in the North Sea, where access or fishing techniques are restricted to protect juvenile cod and mackerel. Other boxes restrict the catch of one species to protect others. For example, the Norway pout box protects haddock and whiting, and sprat boxes protect herring. The EC and UK government admit that rapid and flexible placement of boxes to protect high concentrations of juvenile fish would be useful. Unfortunately, identifying these areas quickly enough isn't simple. High rates of bycatch might actually indicate a healthy stock of fish, while low catches could mean the population was already seriously depleted. At present, surveys for young fish are too widely spaced to give the fine-grained detail that is required.

Maybe the temporary box approach should be combined with permanently unfished areas, like those pioneered as fisheries management tools by many small-scale tropical fisheries. Fishermen understandably resist losing their fishing grounds, but there is mounting evidence that overall catches can sometimes be bigger where part of an area is unfished. This relies on the fact that big fish and invertebrates (such as lobster) produce many times more eggs than small individuals of the same species. For example, American researchers found that a 61cm snapper could produce 212 times the number of eggs of one 42cm long. Big fish are the first to disappear in fished stocks and rarely reach maximum size. But protected areas where fish can grow big are able to restock other exploited fishing grounds. Protected areas provide an insurance policy and could unravel some of the tortuous bycatch regulations.

Unfortunately, the international and national legislation needed for protected areas can also be extremely complicated; and around the UK, as elsewhere, inshore marine reserves have been delayed by both fishermen and divers. I find this unacceptable. As recreational divers we should be looking after the sea, not protesting that we want the occasional shellfish dinner. A lobster taken by a diver is just as dead as one taken by a professional fisherman.

Some countries are beginning to propose marine protected areas. In 1990 the US National Marine Fisheries Service recommended 20 per cent of the south-eastern US seaboard should be protected from fishing to help support fish stocks in the remaining area. Scientists and environmentalists in New Zealand have been campaigning for the last decade to protect 10 per cent of the coastline. In European waters, the Netherlands Institute for Sea Research has proposed two permanent boxes in the North Sea where fishing and mineral extraction would be banned and pollution controlled.

But in the meantime, is there anything we divers can do about the incomprehensible wastage? However distant international laws and regulations seem, don't forget that it was public awareness and consumer pressure that put issues such as driftnetting and dolphin-safe tuna on the political agenda. Sainsbury, the UK's largest retail grocer, recently agreed to phase out 120 products that contain fish oil from European industrial fishing. The World Wide Fund for Nature, in cooperation with Unilever (makers of Birdseye and other well-known fish products) are pioneering an initiative called the Marine Stewardship Council which aims to promote sustainable fisheries. By 1998 anyone who wants to eat fish with a clean conscience should be able to find their reliable logo on supermarket shelves. It is just one step to help address the appalling waste which threatens all marine life and the health of the planet as a whole. Many more are needed if our children are still to use the phrase plenty more fish in the sea.

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