On 4 December the UN General Assembly called upon all high seas fishing nations to intensify their efforts to protect vulnerable deep-sea life in the international waters of the world’s oceans.
Gathered for the annual Oceans and Law of the Sea debate, the General Assembly adopted a resolution which requires high seas fishing nations to conduct impact assessments to determine the potential impacts of deep-sea bottom fishing on the seabed and adopt and implement regulations to prevent damage to vulnerable deep ocean habitats before they permit, or authorise, their fishing fleets to engage in deep-sea fishing on the high seas. The General Assembly also called on fishing nations to publicise the impact assessments to allow the international community as a whole to judge whether sufficient protections are in place.
“The UN Resolution is designed to ensure that high seas fishing nations prohibit bottom fishing on the high seas unless environmental impact assessments have been conducted and regulations are put into place beforehand to prevent the destruction of deep-sea biodiversity,” said Matthew Gianni of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC).
The 2009 resolution reaffirms and strengthens a landmark resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2006. States and regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs) have been slow to implement the measures in the 2006 resolution which called for the management of high seas bottom fisheries to protect cold-water corals, seamounts and other areas of deep-sea biodiversity.
“The UN General Assembly is effectively calling for fisheries management on the high seas to be brought into the 21st century - any other large-scale industrial activity in the marine environment would require prior environmental impact assessments before being permitted” said Mr Gianni. “Moreover, deep-sea corals, like their shallow water counterparts, are under threat from the acidification of the world’s oceans due to the increased absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere. This is all the more reason to prohibit the senseless and entirely unnecessary destruction of deep-sea corals by bottom trawling so as to allow these ecosystems the maximum capacity possible to survive the deleterious impacts of global climate change.”
