The 'Against Longlining' campaign objective was to prevent the Maldives government from reopening longline fishing. The Maldives government made public the draft for the new policy to grant new longline fishing licenses to attract new investment to the country. The campaign wanted to ensure the Maldives continued supporting the traditional one-by-one fishing methods that safeguard marine biodiversity and uphold local fishing communities’ livelihoods.
By exposing the adverse consequences associated with longlining—including overfishing, high bycatch rates of vulnerable species such as sharks, turtles, and seabirds and the potential degradation of marine ecosystems—the campaign sought to protect Maldivian marine life as one of the few shark sanctuaries in the world and the only one in the Indian Ocean.
Longline fishing is not a traditional fishing technique in the Maldives and often undermines local fishers' interests by primarily benefiting foreign crews and corporations. In the past, that had been the case. The recent change in government opened the door to reintroducing this destructive fishing method that would certainly endanger the health of the coral reefs vital to many marine species. The government alluded to the fact that the country needed more income.
Therefore, we focused not only on the negative environmental consequences of this fishing method but also on the socioeconomic dangers. Since tourism is the country's main revenue, we highlighted how unintentionally catching marine species would diminish the country's attractiveness for tourists, thus hurting the jobs of so many Maldivians. This was an issue that would affect Maldivians and marine health.
Once we learned about the government’s intention to grant new licenses for longline fishing, we created a network of people and organizations concerned about this topic. Part of the success of the campaign was the diversity of the network we created, including scientists, fishers, environmental NGOs, tourism companies and celebrities. Through international collaboration, we launched the campaign ‘Against Longlining’ to mobilize public support and raise awareness regarding the destructive effects of this fishing method, which, one in five times, unintentionally catches turtles, sharks, rays, and seabirds, among other species.
The first step was to contact more than 177 international scientists who signed an open letter directed to the government, expressing their concern about longline fishing and its destructive effects on marine health.
We wanted to ensure that this was not a discussion that only included marine biologists, so we launched an online petition that gathered more than 30 thousand signatures in less than three weeks. We ensured that the government felt this online support. We sent a press release about it to Maldivian media, which covered the news.
International pressure was another factor that we promoted. We mobilized UK celebrities like Steve Backshall, a TV wildlife presenter, and prepared a press release that was picked up by the press in the United Kingdom, where Blue Marine is based.
We prepared videos, animations, carousels, graphics and social media captions to feed the campaign. We shared a social media pack with all allies and together, we pushed these communications from the networks of each organization. The most shared video showed Maldivians (fishers, scientists and NGO workers) talking about the dangers of longlining. The authenticity of this video motivated others. People felt identified with what they were seeing.
Maldivians, inspired by the campaign, started posting their own videos in Divehi, recorded with their cell phones, inviting others to sign the petition and talking about how, historically, longline fishing had created income for international fishing companies, not local fishers. The social media pack, as well as the individual assets like videos and animations were shared through WhatsApp, reaching audiences not just on Facebook, Instagram, X and LinkedIn, but also older generations that use WhatsApp as their primary way of communication in the Maldives.
We brought down the barriers so that not only the professionals or the scientists were discussing this issue but also those who would be the first and most affected by this decision, the local communities, fishers, diver instructors, tourism workers and the rest of the national population who gain their income from the ocean and live next to it in an island nation.
That was one of our goals, ensuring this conversation permeated the Maldivian voters so that the government could feel their constituency mobilizing for this topic.
These results show the power of creating a diverse network of allies and powerful assets showing locals concerned and pressuring the government to listen to their citizens.
On August 29, the government publicly announced that it wouldn't reopen this fishing method.
At the beginning of the campaign, the government made a public announcement saying they wouldn´t lift the ban on shark fishing. However, as the campaign pressure rose, the government was forced to come clean and issued a press release acknowledging their intention to reopen longline fishing and their understanding of how 29 shark species caught as bycatch -many of which are red listed as critically endangered- would be commercialized to attract investment to the country.
We obtained a total editorial reach of 672,600 with mentions in the main Maldives media like Seafood Source (UMU: 144K); Undercurrent News (UMU: 65.5K); Divernet (UMU: 59.6K); Sun.mv (UMU: 56.2K); The Edition (UMU: 50.1K) and Daily Nautica (UMU: 19.8K).
30,679 people signed the online petition between the 12nd and 31st of August.
177 international scientists signed the open letter addressed to the Maldives government, expressing their concern regarding the potential reopening of longlining.
13 organisations joined the campaign.
Our social media post announcing the government's decision to cancel the reopening of longlining had 91.4% views from non-followers, demonstrating that the #AgainstLonglining campaign reached new audiences.
As a result of the international pressure, as well as the media coverage and the concern expressed by local organizations (fishers unions, tourism companies and NGOs), on August 29th, the Maldives government reversed its decision to allow longlining fishing. This maintained the Maldives as one of the few shark sanctuaries in the world. The marine life in the Maldives was protected and the livelihoods of the local population.
