Source: Greenpeace
In a new video published today, Greenpeace International reveals dramatic damage of bottom trawling on the Emperor Seamounts in the North Pacific, devastating fragile ecosystems, and calls for the creation of a new marine protected area in the High Seas, which would include a ban on all fishing practices.
The footage, collected by researchers at the Florida State University over several years [1], shows bottom trawl scars on the seabed thousands of metres beneath the waves. The compelling evidence emphasises how this precious ecosystem has been decimated by years of bottom trawling, which involves dragging heavy weighted fishing gear across the sea floor, destroying fragile communities that take thousands of years to grow.
Visuals are available in the Greenpeace Media Library here:
“The deep oceans are an amazing, mysterious world, full of life. This footage of ghost gear littering the seafloor hundreds of metres deep shows the degree of impact that the fishing industry has had, and the urgent need for protection of these High Seas seamounts so that they can recover to the rich communities we see in unimpacted areas” explained Dr. Amy Baco-Taylor, Professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at Florida State University.
The Emperor Seamounts, a remote chain of more than 800 seamounts, is an ecological and cultural hotspot [2] and a vulnerable marine ecosystem (VME) home to a rich variety of cold-water corals and sponges, as well as smaller creatures like crustaceans, sea stars and several species of marine mammals. Trawlers target the area because of its abundance of marine life.
Bottom trawling is a favoured method by commercial fishing companies for the potential to catch large quantities of animals in one go. But is an indiscriminate way of fishing, tearing up seabed ecosystems, often hauling in significant bycatch, threatening the biodiversity of the ocean and endangering the health of the fishery itself.
“Even in the most remote areas of the oceans, in the great silence of the deep, industrial fishing is causing environmental destruction”, adds Chris Thorne, campaign manager for Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign.
“The Emperor Seamounts must be one of the first areas protected using the Global Ocean Treaty, and the first of many new protected areas which must cover 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.”
Greenpeace Aotearoa oceans campaigner Ellie Hooper, says the video shows the damage that destructive bottom trawling causes to vulnerable underwater communities on seamounts, and notes that New Zealand is the last country to do this in the international waters of the South Pacific.
“We know that these trawlers are pulling up huge, ancient coral during their activities. The New Zealand bottom trawling fleet is causing long-lasting damage to vital seamount ecosystems – that support an incredible diversity of marine life, and have been called ocean lifelines.
“Everything from humpback whales to seabirds use seamounts in one manner or another – yet they are being pummelled by the bottom trawling industry. It’s simply unsustainable for the ocean.”
The UN General Assembly made a Resolution in 2006 calling for protection for vulnerable marine ecosystems, including seamounts, from bottom fishing. But some states and regional fisheries organisations keep postponing action.
Only 20 vessels from six countries, including New Zealand, are estimated to bottom trawl on high seas seamounts. Seamount catches only make up a tiny proportion of global marine catch [3], but the damage trawlers do to these places is huge and long-lasting.
In April, the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC), the body responsible for managing fishing in the area, failed to pass a proposal from the US and Canada to ban bottom trawling on the Emperor Seamounts, despite just two vessels known to currently bottom fish the site. [4]
