After Crimea joined Russia, our country's fishing industry suffered its heaviest losses since independence.

Of the 216,000 tons of fish grown and caught last year, 150,000 tons were caught by Crimean fishermen, of which 98,000 tons were caught in the ocean and 52,000 tons were caught in the Azov-Black Sea basin. Russia also acquired 9 trawlers belonging to the state-owned company Atlantika, registered in Sevastopol.

But that's not all. The Crimean parliament nationalized the two largest fishing ports - Sevastopol and Kerch, which will be transferred to the Russian Ministry of Transport, and the Crimean fisheries protection service will only deal with inland waters, since according to Russian laws, border guards monitor the safety of marine resources.

The fate of two research institutes is also unknown - YugNIRO and InBYuM, where the country's leading scientists worked, collecting data on the southern seas and developing programs for the conservation, reproduction and civilized use of the gifts of the ocean. As for the Kerch Marine Technological University, which trained specialists for the fishing industry, it will be transferred to the Russian Ministry of Education.

Since the structural divisions of the Ukrainian fishery agency in Crimea will go to different departments, it can be predicted that the catch of Crimean fishermen will be significantly reduced. After all, in the Azov-Black Sea basin last year, Russian fishermen caught 4 times less fish than Ukrainian ones - only 21 thousand tons. It is not difficult to predict what this threatens Ukraine - store shelves will be occupied by foreign fish products.

- Before 1991, our country caught 1 million 100 thousand tons of fish. With the WHO standard of 19.6 kg per person, our figure was 24 kg, - says the head of the Association of Fishermen of Ukraine Oleksandr Chistyakov. - However, many years of mismanagement and poaching have led to the fact that today only 15% of the fish product in the Ukrainian food basket is of domestic production, and 85% is imported, and of dubious quality. Not all imported fish grown in captivity is useful, since it is stuffed with antibiotics and all sorts of chemicals during the growth process to quickly gain marketable weight. If we do not create an effective state barrier to control the quality of imported fish products, the consequences can be disastrous. This refers, first of all, to the health of the nation. According to Mr. Chistyakov, in connection with the loss of Crimea, fish imports may increase to 95%. Inland waters will not save us, since about 1.5% of the food basket is caught in them. Professor Sergey Mezhzherin from the Shmalgauzen Institute of Zoology believes that there are no more than 20% of bream (the most common commercial fish) left compared to 1991, 10% of pike, and no more than 5% of pike perch and catfish. The latest edition of the Red Book of Ukraine includes 70 species of our domestic fish as endangered.

The only way out of the situation is to ban commercial fishing in inland waters, especially since fishermen, in pursuit of immediate earnings, catch fish with seines and trawls, using nets with microcells, after which only a shell remains on the bottom.

Readers may ask: "Where to get fish in this case?" The answer is obvious - it needs to be artificially bred. After all, this is absurd - last year only 24 thousand tons of fish were bred. And this is in a country with 73 thousand rivers, 40 thousand lakes, 1100 reservoirs, 400 thousand ponds and 2 seas. Meanwhile, China has almost one and a half times fewer reservoirs, where 4 million 500 thousand tons are grown annually.

The most interesting thing is that the Chinese managed to achieve such impressive results thanks to programs developed by Ukrainian specialists. They also helped Romania take 1st place in beluga farming, and Israel in the waterless desert completely cover domestic needs and enter the top three leaders in caviar production.

What do our specialists suggest? It is possible to protect the domestic market from imported surrogates and poaching in inland waters with the help of a certificate of fish origin, as a single document certifying the legality of the origin of fish products. This document will also allow unaccounted catch by fishing enterprises to come out of the shadows.

As for breeding, we should use the experience of those countries that have taken leading positions in this area in a short period of time. We should lease reservoirs for fish farming for symbolic amounts of money, exempt fish farms from paying taxes for 4-5 years and open preferential credit lines for them.

A ban on industrial fishing in domestic reservoirs will not affect the situation on the market in any way, since such management is only necessary for fishery officials who cover up poaching and uncontrolled fishing by fishermen to fill their own pockets.

Our rivers should be used for recreation only. This will fill local budgets, starting from the sale and rental of fishing equipment and ending with services at the bases: selling bait, renting tackle, rods and parking. The Canadian budget receives 26 billion dollars a year from such recreation.