Former President Mohamed Nasheed has stated that the government's decision to allow longline fishing will damage Maldives tourism and Pole & Line tuna brands.

In a post on Nasheed X tonight, he said that longline fishing causes huge bycatch of rays, dolphins, seabirds, and sharks among others, and that it will damage the fishing and tourism industry of the country.

Nasheed's post comes at a time when the Fisheries Ministry has issued a rule to allow longline fishing in the Maldives. In light of the government's decision. many took to social media to express their opinions against longline fishing.

Works to sign an online petition against the decision is also ongoing.

The fisheries ministry said in a press release yesterday that the government opened the permits for longline fishing after considering the experience gained from longline fishing in recent years. A special provision has been included to ensure that longline fishing is beneficial to the people and in accordance with the laws and regulations. The regulations will set out the rules that must be met to maintain the safety and security of the crew on the vessels allowed to longline fish.

The vessel will be equipped with a vessel locating device and an electronic monitoring system to ensure proper monitoring of its fishing activities, as well as mandatory departure clearance before departure for each monthly voyage, the fisheries ministry said.

The permitted area for longline fishing has been determined based on the information and statistics received by the Ministry, which is outside the area where the fishermen usually catch skipjack tuna.

"This is the area 100 miles outside the archipelagic baseline of Maldives from 6 degrees north latitude to south," the Fisheries Ministry said.

The ministry said fishing for sharks on vessels licensed for lane fishing is prohibited under the rules. The rule design will include necessary measures to reduce bycatch in fisheries such as sharks.

The rules will prohibit the use of wire trace as the leader of the branch line used in the vessel to reduce the number of sharks caught as bycatch.

"These regulations will enable sharks caught in lane fisheries and bycatch to be processed by authorized shark processing facilities in accordance with internationally accepted best practices and rules. This is not a permit to fish sharks nor encouraging to do so," the Fisheries Ministry said.

"The undead shark should be released as soon as possible and thus to minimize injury to the shark it is instructed to cut the net as close as possible to the shark's mouth or beak using a spear remover and a spear cutter," they noted.