fisher

"The fishers might in the long term have to change the species that they target and that they catch," suggested Dr Pinnegar.

"I've got fishermen in tears on the phone," Ian Mitchell - who works as a middleman between fishers and retailers - told the ABC.

The authority responsible for implementing the bylaw said the holes could be closed if fishers were trying to catch octopus only, and it was working on trying to find a long-term solution.

But the fishers forced to work there live a precarious existence, and for some, the long journey to the Saya de Malha is the last they ever take.

Ecopetrol, which is 88% owned by the Colombian state and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, rejects the fishers' claims that it is polluting the water.