Source: NZ Herald
Leading environmental organisations and recreational fishers have joined forces to call on the government to restrict bottom trawling.
Continue reading Forces joined in battle against bottom trawling
21 May, 2019
Fisheries
16 May, 2019
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Thursday 16 May 2019 — New Zealand’s leading environmental organisations have today joined with recreational fishers to call on the Government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts.
Continue reading Rec fishers join environmental heavyweights to save “kauri forests of our ocean”
3 April, 2019
Source: Science
Author: Alex Fox
No flag can claim the high seas, but many nations exploit them. As a result, life in the two-thirds of the oceans beyond any country’s territorial waters faces many threats that are largely unregulated, including overfishing and the emerging deep-sea mining industry.
Continue reading First ever high-seas conservation treaty would protect life in international waters
25 March, 2019
Source: Pew Charitable Trusts
Far from every shore, beyond the jurisdiction of any country, lie the vast high seas, full of life and biodiversity. They cover nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of the world’s ocean and harbor life, ranging from whales, turtles, sharks, and dolphins to deep-sea corals, hydrothermal vents, and, experts believe, a variety of undiscovered sea life.
Today the high seas face increasing threats from human activities, including fishing, pollution, and seabed mining, but there is no comprehensive conservation mechanism in place to protect the biodiversity that thrives in these waters and maintain a healthy ocean.
That could soon change. From March 25 to April 5, governments will reconvene at United Nations headquarters in New York to continue negotiations on the first treaty to protect the high seas by 2020.
Watch the video here.
8 March, 2019
Source: iPolitics
Author: Holly Lake
The waters off the coast of Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula are part of Canada’s newest marine protected area (MPA). Official protection of the area has been a long time coming, with efforts to have the peninsula designated having started in 2011. This week, Fisheries and Oceans Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made it official.
Continue reading ‘Crown jewel’ of the Gulf of St. Lawrence part of new marine protected area
8 March, 2019
Source: Radio Canada International
Author: Lynn Desjardins
The Canadian government will create new marine refuges off the western coast that will protect some ancient and fragile glass sponge reefs. The charity, Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS), “is very pleased” that this “ecological treasure” not far from Vancouver will be protected from all bottom-contact fishing. CPAWS and other groups have worked hard to study and secure protection of the reefs.
Continue reading Charity applauds glass sponge reef protection
8 March, 2019
Source: Newshub
Author: Isobel Ewing
Orange Roughy 900 metres deep have been captured by scientists’ cameras on the Chatham Rise, but overfishing pushed the slow-growing species to the brink. New evidence shows its habitat may be heading the same way.
Continue reading Deep-sea trawling taking a toll on certain species and their habitats
7 March, 2019
Source: Stuff.co.nz
Author: Charlie Mitchell
Trawlers hunting for fish in the dark, cold depths of the sea may be doing irreversible damage to vast coral reefs on the seafloor.
Findings from New Zealand researchers have some environmentalists pushing for a ban on bottom trawling, the primary method of catching deep sea fish, likening its impact on seabed wildlife to the destruction of kauri forests.
Continue reading Bottom trawling for fish causing ‘permanent damage’ to deep sea forest
5 March, 2019
Source: Fstoppers
Author: Jennifer Tallerico
The devastating effects of bottom trawlers lead one activist and photographer to create a campaign to drive emotional messages through their imagery.
Continue reading Underwater Photography to Take a Powerful Stand Against Trawling
6 February, 2019
Source: Phys.Org
A recent paper on the effectiveness of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in northern Europe (“Elevated trawling inside protected areas undermines conservation outcomes in a global fishing hot spot”) reveals that industrial-scale fishing – primarily the use of bottom-trawl fishing – is widespread in so-called protected areas that were established specifically to safeguard highly biodiverse marine and coastal habitats across the North Sea. We welcome this important and timely piece of research. Unfortunately, a number of the press reports that covered this paper’s findings included sensationalist – and misleading – headlines that are potentially very damaging to the cause of marine conservation.
Continue reading When is a Marine Protected Area not a Marine Protected Area?