Thursday, August 12, Port Dunedin: Greenpeace activists have this evening underlined the call for bottom trawling to be banned on seamounts, confronting Talley’s ship the Amaltal Explorer as it headed out for more ocean destruction.

A small team of activists deployed banners from an inflatable boat in the port of Dunedin calling for an end to bottom trawling on seamounts.

Jessica Desmond, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace Aotearoa, says New Zealanders are sick of seeing ocean ruin at the hands of the commercial fishing industry.

"We’re here today to remind Talley’s that their social license for this practice is gone, just like the ancient coral forests they destroy with their nets.

"This factory bottom trawler bulldozes delicate habitats, scooping up huge amounts of ocean life and killing ancient coral forests. The New Zealand public wants this to stop.

"Seamounts are the heart of the ocean, being hotspots for all kinds of marine life. When bottom trawlers like Talley’s target these areas they are seriously damaged - and research suggests they may never fully recover.

"The science is very clear that bottom trawling is furthering extinctions and the climate crisis - emptying the sea of fish, and releasing more carbon globally than the aviation industry."

Desmond says it’s time for the Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, David Parker, to step in to regulate this practice, and protect the most vulnerable parts of the ocean from bottom trawling.

" Almost 60,000 New Zealanders have now signed petitions calling for an end to this outdated fishing method. It’s time this Government listened to them.

"All of us depend on a healthy ocean. It stabilises the climate, provides the oxygen we breathe and is home to unique marine life. We have to protect it, for the sake of all life in the sea and on Earth too."

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