Government's bottom trawl ban doesn't go far enough

Auckland, 4 April 2007 — The New Zealand Governments announcement today to close 32 per cent of our EEZ to bottom trawling does little to stop the destruction of vulnerable deep-sea life threatened by the practice, this is clearly illustrated by a map released by Greenpeace in August 2006 shows. (1)

Greenpeace took a Ministry of Fisheries 'trawling map' which shows where the fishing industry has been bottom trawling (2), and overlaid it over the fishing industry's map of its closures (3). Although there are new areas added to the proposal it is nowhere near the science based protection that is needed.

The map shows that most areas proposed for closure are either too deep or too rough to bottom trawl, or are otherwise of no interest to the fishing industry because they don't contain enough bottom-trawled target fish, such as orange roughy, to be economical as fishing areas.

"Greenpeace welcomes science-based industry initiatives to close areas to bottom trawling, but the Governments initiative does nothing to protect areas that are currently being destroyed," said Mike Hagler, Greenpeace oceans campaigner. "Most of the areas proposed for closure are of no interest to the fishing industry, there aren't enough fish."

Greenpeace also criticised the lack of a real consultation process from the Government in drafting this proposal and said "it's been back room deals between the Minister and the fishing industry and environmental groups have had little consultation". Over 1600 people who sent submissions to the Government will be disappointed today.

--

Notes to Editor
1. A high resolution version of the map overlay can be downloaded from:
http://www.greenpeace.gen.nz/map/
2. "Trawling on or near the sea bed during the 1990s," Ministry of Fisheries, http://www.fish.govt.nz/en-nz/Environmental/default.htm
3. http://www.seafood.co.nz/newscentre/press/2006pressreleases/closures.asp

ENDS

© Scoop Media