Fwd: FW: [Food-news] Bottom Trawling Must be Stopped

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> [Food-news] Bottom Trawling Must be Stopped

>

> www.foodnews.ca

>

> Editor's Note: This article exposes bottom trawling

> as one of the dark

> secrets of the Canadian fishing industry. The

> sustainability of a major

> food supply is being threatened by the destructive

> effects of bottom

> trawling on marine ecosystems. Over 1,000

> scientists and a global

> coalition of NGOs have called on the United Nations

> General Assembly to

> declare a global moratorium on all bottom trawl

> fishing on the high seas.

> While the UN body has urged nations to consider

> temporary bans on high

> seas bottom trawling, it has stopped short of

> declaring a full moritorium.

> In the meantime, important commercial fish species

> are being pushed to the

> brink of extinction. BC*

>

>

> CAMERON SMITH

>

> Toronto Star 4 February 2006

> www.thestar.com

>

> Bottom trawling is a curse. It's wrecking deep sea

> floors, destroying

> marine ecosystems, and devastating fish stocks. Yet

> pious appeals to

> stop the carnage is all the response that nations of

> the world, and

> Canada in particular, have offered.

>

> In private, Canada’s policy is even worse. Its

> environmental piety

> masks a stubborn determination to keep trawling the

> bottom in

> Canadian waters.

>

> Ships that engage in bottom trawling use huge nets

> heavily weighted,

> so that the mouth scrapes along the sea bed. It rips

> out everything

> in its way, including cold water corals which can

> grow to 10 metres

> in height, seamounts, hydrothermal vent ecosystems,

> sponges, and

> other aquatic features that offer food, protection,

> and nurseries for

> an incredible array of creatures.

>

> Most deep-sea life is slow growing and long lived.

> Some corals exist

> for 500 years. Sponges can be 50 years old, and some

> clams 200 years

> old. Because growth is so slow, recovery after

> bottom trawling can

> take centuries.

>

> But in addition to ripping up the seabed, bottom

> trawling traps all

> kinds of species that are not targeted. They're

> called " by-catch. "

> Usually they're dead when hauled up, killed by

> changing water

> pressure. They're simply tossed back into the sea as

> waste.

>

> Once trawled, the seabed is as stripped as a forest

> clear cut.

>

> Greenpeace and more than 50 other environmental

> groups have been

> pressing the United Nations to declare a moratorium

> on bottom

> trawling in international waters until a treaty can

> be negotiated

> that will conserve high seas biodiversity.

>

> Canada has argued against a moratorium, and we only

> now discover why,

> thanks to an access to information request made by

> The Canadian

> Press. The request uncovered an internal briefing

> document that

> warned that a moratorium on the high seas might

> create pressure to

> extend it to Canadian waters.

>

> " While Canadian fishers engage in almost no bottom

> trawling on the

> high seas, bottom trawling is regularly practised

> within Canada’s

> (exclusive economic zone), " it said. In 2001, bottom

> trawling

> accounted for $500 million, or about 28 per cent of

> the total landed

> value of fisheries in eastern Canada.

>

> The United Nations general assembly passed a

> resolution in November

> 2004 saying there's an urgent need to protect deep

> sea ecosystems,

> and countries of the world should consider

> prohibiting bottom trawling.

>

> Then, in November last year, the assembly, with

> Canada as one of the

> sponsors of the resolution, simply reiterated its

> concern.

>

> Meanwhile, research at Memorial University in

> Newfoundland is

> offering a closer glimpse of the impact of bottom

> trawling. It

> studied five species of fish — roundnose grenadier

> and onion-eye

> grenadier (both fished commercially by bottom

> trawlers), and blue

> hake, spiny eel, and spinytail skate (taken as

> by-catch). All five

> are also taken as by-catch in fishing for Greenland

> halibut and redfish.

>

> The research found that the number of roundnose

> grenadier has

> declined by 99.6 per cent, and onion-eye grenadier

> by 93.3 per cent.

> All five species now qualify as critically

> endangered in the

> northwest Atlantic, the research says.

>

> The research results are reported in Nature, Vol

> 439, 5 Jan. 2006.

> " If we continue this way (with bottom trawling)

> we'll lose a major

> food supply, " warns Jennifer Devine, the lead author

> in the research.

>

> When marine ecosystems are destroyed, she adds, " We

> simply don't know

> what all the consequences will be. A whole chain of

> events will be

> put in motion, and where they'll take us, nobody

> knows. "

>

> Next on the agenda is a July session of the U.N.

> general assembly

> that will review the situation, and again be asked

> to declare a

> moratorium. Maybe this time Canada will be less

> hypocritical — and

> more environmentally responsible.

>

> * Bruce Mackenzie is currently doing research with

> the Toronto Food Policy

> Council on fisheries and the Great Lakes. He has

> rescently joined

> Foodnews' Board of Contributing Editors.

>

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