An international group of non governmental organisations (NGOs) is rolling out a major lobbying operation at the UN and worldwide for a ban on bottom-trawling. The General Assembly is debating the future of regulations for the deep oceans for seven weeks to end in November, reports Peter O''Neill.
The NGOs say deep, seabed trawling damages seamounts for little fish caught and it is like "clear-cutting" swathes of forest in the Amazon with replanting or preservation of the forest bio-system. Called the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) it says: a "Moratorium on bottom trawl fishing on the high seas is needed now!"
Developing countries may see the debate as an opportunity to protect their 200m zones and beyond. UN Ambassador Beck for one of the world's small countries, Palau (population 20,303, in the North Pacific Ocean, told the General Assembly recently: "...foreign fishing fleets, which have denuded the waters proximate to their own harbours, have come to the Pacific and threaten to do the same. The very food chain is threatened by new fishing practices, which have begun to damage Pacific seamounts in ways, which the scientific community deems alarming. It is for this reason that Palau has called for a moratorium on Deep Sea Bottom Trawling until the scientific community can gauge the long-term impact of this practice."
The DSCC also launched the campaign in Cost Rica which is backing a moratorium. Beck said: [we] applaud Costa Rica for its leadership on this issue. This is a hot issue for New Zealand because of its deep-sea roughy catch. There the NZ Herald has reported an international petition from some 1,000 scientists calling for a moratorium.
The DSCC also took out an ad in the New York Times on October 11 [www.savethehighseas.org/publicdocs/NYTimesad.pdf]. It also claims to have documents showing Spain is shifting towards a moratorium and says this may be important because her "fleets are responsible for approximately 40% of the global catch".
The industry campaign seems to be drifting. The NZ Herald points out that NZ's EEZ covers four million sq km compared to New Zealand's land mass of 268,000 sq km. It quoted George Clement, chief executive of the Orange Roughy Management Company, saying the fishing industry's footprint on the sea floor was small and that the industry does not fish seamounts of more than 1,000m.
The allegation by Greenpeace, that big nets were being used, was not true as they would be ripped to pieces, he said. Anyway, he added, it was like accusing someone of damaging New Zealand's mountainous McKenzie Country region (175,000 square acres) by digging a vegetable garden to grow a few Brussel sprouts.
