Groups lash strategy on seafloor bottom trawling

The Government has unveiled a strategy, denounced as weak by Greenpeace, to address the environmental threat from bottom trawling.

As part of this New Zealand will take its concerns about the practice to the United Nations and its regional partners.

The Government would like interim bans implemented on bottom trawling in vulnerable areas.

Those bans could be lifted once effective management frameworks were in place, Conservation Minister Chris Carter, Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Jim Sutton and Fisheries Minister David Benson-Pope said in a joint statement.

Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has likened bottom trawling to using a bulldozer to catch rabbits.

The ministers said the practice took a heavy toll on marine life in vulnerable areas. New Zealand intended to take a leading role in improving the scope of regional fisheries management organisation to help address effects of the practice, they said.

New Zealand and Australia are working together to identify areas for protection in the Tasman Sea.

The Government would also work with other countries to "improve biodiversity protection of the high seas and develop practical, enforceable outcomes", the ministers said.

Domestically, it would work with the seafood industry to explore immediate voluntary measures in some areas.

There did not appear to be broad international support for an interim moratorium, but this was unlikely to form the basis of the proposal to the UN.

Bottom trawling is widely used by most fishing nations. There are thought to be 20 to 30 New Zealand-flagged vessels involved in the practice.

"There are tens of thousands of vulnerable seamounts within the Pacific basin, and only a small fraction have been scientifically explored or fished," the ministers said.

In New Zealand waters, 19 seamounts covering about 100,000sq km were closed to bottom trawling in 2001.

New Zealand fishing companies have launched a fightback against criticism of bottom trawling on seamounts.

A bottom trawling ban in New Zealand water would be devastating for the local industry, Seafood Industry Council chairman Dave Sharp said last month.

It was unlikely to attract international support.

In February, more than 1000 scientists from 69 countries called for an immediate moratorium on bottom trawling on the high seas - outside exclusive economic zones - because of the likelihood it was destroying biodiversity.

Large areas of the ocean bed are relatively empty, but seamounts and plateaus with high levels of nutrients often have diverse ecosystems of coldwater corals, and provide a gathering place for the likes of orange roughy. Ms Fitzsimons has expressed concern that New Zealand was one of only 11 nations that allowed bottom trawling on the high seas.

In June, the UN said protected zones should be set up in the oceans to shield fish stocks from trawlers and pollution.

The environmental lobbyist Greenpeace, said the Government appeared to have been co-opted by the fishing industry into a weak case-by-case approach to dealing with bottom trawling.

Greenpeace oceans campaigner Carmen Gravatt said the Government should be leading the way against indiscriminate destruction caused by bottom trawling.

Instead, it had bought the industry's argument that regional agreements would save deep sea life, when it actually took years to identify and negotiate such protection.

In the meantime, fishers continued trawling. "We don't have the luxury of time," she said. "The only real option is a UN moratorium in international waters."

Forest and Bird said the Government's approach would lead to decades of dithering and destruction. "The Government has swallowed the fishing industry's line," it said.

Forest and Bird said New Zealand led the world in opposing drift net fishing when local companies did not use them, but was an "international laggard" on bottom trawling.

Bulldozing the seafloor

* Bottom trawling involves ships dragging huge, weighted nets in very deep water near underwater mountains known as seamounts.

* The nets scoop up all marine life in their path, from valuable fish to inedible species and delicate corals.

* There are thought to be 20 to 30 New Zealand-flagged vessels involved in the practice.


- NZPA