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
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
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?
The Annual Meeting of the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) today adopted a measure (regulation) for managing deep-sea fisheries on the high seas of the South Pacific. The regulation will allow New Zealand vessels to continue deep-sea bottom trawling on biodiversity hotspots on seamounts and deep mountain ridge systems on the high seas, putting large percentages of deepwater corals, related ecosystems, and rare species at risk in the Southwest Pacific and Tasman Sea.
At the same time, the meeting reviewed the activities of a New Zealand vessel, the Amaltal Apollo, caught repeatedly bottom trawling last year in an area closed by SPRFMO to protect deepwater corals. Pending the outcome of prosecution against the captain and company, scheduled to begin in February in Nelson, the SPRFMO meeting decided to keep the vessel on a draft list of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing vessels. New Zealand trawl vessels have dragged up many tonnes of corals and other vulnerable deep-sea habitat forming species over the past ten years of deep-sea fishing on seamounts on the high seas according to a report provided to SPRFMO by New Zealand in September of last year.
The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly called on States and regional fisheries treaty organisations, such as SPRFMO, to prevent bottom trawl fishing in sensitive habitats and other areas of deep-sea biodiversity or else prohibit bottom trawl fishing. The UN’s 1st World Ocean Assessment in 2016, in reviewing the status of seamounts worldwide, expressed concern that “deepwater trawling has caused severe, widespread, long-term destruction of these environments globally”.
“We are very disappointed that SPRFMO member countries were convinced by New Zealand and Australia to adopt a deeply flawed regulation that will allow continued degradation and destruction of biologically rich and diverse ecosystems in the deep-sea from the Louisville Ridge in the western central South Pacific all the way across to the Tasman Sea” said Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition who attended the meeting. “And all of this to provide fishing opportunities for a handful of New Zealand bottom trawl vessels to catch 1,500 tonnes of orange roughy, a long-lived species of fish highly vulnerable to overfishing, on the high seas. This runs completely counter to resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly since 2006 and global negotiations to conserve and protect marine biodiversity in the international waters of the world’s oceans.”
As a result of concerns expressed by the European Union, the regulation will be reviewed by the next meeting of SPRFMO’s Scientific Committee to determine whether in fact it does provide protection to deep-sea biodiversity. “We are urging SPRFMO member countries to scrutinize this regulation much more carefully than they have done this week and ensure that at the next meeting of SPRFMO it is amended to ensure the protection of biologically rich and diverse deep-sea ecosystems”.
For further information contact:
Matthew Gianni, DSCC: +31 646 168 899
Duncan Currie, DSCC: +31 622 582 374
Note to editors:
UN 1st World Ocean Assessment, 2016. Chapter 51. Biological Communities on Seamounts and Other Submarine Features Potentially Threatened by Disturbance (page 15).
Download the press release
image © Mike Markovina
Source: The Guardian
Species as old as the dinosaurs are swimming around in tropical waters at depths accessed by commercial fishermen, according to a world-first study conducted by Australian researchers.
The study, published in the journal Nature on Thursday, examined data on brittle sea stars pulled from 1,500 research voyages in the southern hemisphere from the equator to Antarctica.
Continue reading Brittle star sea ‘dinosaurs’ at risk from commercial fishing, researchers say
Source: Seafood Source
The latest technical paper on catch documentation schemes from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), discusses how such schemes benefit, or could benefit, deep-sea fisheries by protecting them from illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Continue reading High-seas illegal fishing thwarted by catch documentation schemes
Source: The Conversation
Author: Sandra Brooke
When people think of coral reefs, they typically picture warm, clear waters with brightly colored corals and fishes. But other corals live in deep, dark, cold waters, often far from shore in remote locations. These varieties are just as ecologically important as their shallow water counterparts. They also are just as vulnerable to human activities like fishing and energy production.
Continue reading Deepwater corals thrive at the bottom of the ocean, but can’t escape human impacts
Source: Slow Food
Slow Food regrets that instead of setting sustainable catch limits for 19 deep-water stocks, the Agriculture and Fisheries Council withdrew six stocks from the quota, and agreed on the fishing opportunities for only 13 deep-sea stocks in the EU and international waters in the North-East Atlantic, for 2019 and 2020.
Continue reading Slow Food Worried about Newly Adopted Decisions on Marine Environments
Source: Undercurrent News
The EU Council has agreed on the total allowable catches (TACs) and quotas for certain deep-sea stocks in the EU and international waters in the North-East Atlantic, for 2019 and 2020.
The fish stocks concerned are deep sea sharks, black scabbardfish, alfonsino, roundnose grenadier, and red seabream.
“In view of the vulnerability of deep-sea species to human activity, and in order to prevent their over-exploitation, the Council decided to raise the TACs for the two stocks and to reduce the TACs for ten stocks as proposed by the Commission.”
It said it had decided to make cuts to fishing opportunities to protect the maritime environment and help the industry in the longer term.
Continue reading here.
Source: Pew Charitable Trusts
Author: Andrew Clayton
The deep sea is a mysterious world, pitch black and subject to extreme conditions. Life there is specially adapted to this environment, but also remarkably susceptible to human activities such as fishing.
Deep-sea fish tend to be slow-growing, late-maturing and long-lived. Because of these factors, stocks can be quick to collapse and slow to recover. Their sensitive and vulnerable nature makes ending over-exploitation of vital importance.
Continue reading Two Steps to Prevent Overfishing of Deep Sea Species in the EU
