Harbour protest against seamount bottom trawling

PHOTO: LINDA ROBERTSON

Fishing vessel Amaltal Explorer heads down Otago Harbour towards the open sea while Greenpeace protesters call for the banning of bottom trawling on seamounts.

Greenpeace programme director Niamh O’Flynn said seamounts — large underwater mountains — were brimming with life and ancient coral reefs.

Trawling disrupted these mounts, causing devastating damage to the life there.

New Zealand was one of the few countries that had not banned trawling on seamounts and it was time the practice was outlawed, Ms O’Flynn said.

4 Comments

Comments

Pat. Fri, 13/08/2021 - 7:38am #

Ban bottom trawling now!

Mu78 Fri, 13/08/2021 - 10:33am #

People have to eat.

Liebnich Fri, 13/08/2021 - 6:34pm #

Commercially fish more efficiently, then.

Pinkney Fri, 13/08/2021 - 11:49am #

Whatever we do, we need to find systems to feed people. NZ feeds 40 million outside of NZ, and are the most efficient producers in the world. Maybe we should start the conversation about the soon-to-be 10 billion people on our planet? Some people (statistically in NZ the ones whom are more educated and pay more tax) have less kids, whilst those who arnt, tend to have many. Last night on the news, a labourer had seven kids! Time to reduce the breeding and reduce demand on resources, it isnt a human right to have taxpayers fund a touch-7s team of kids.