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If there’s any more evidence needed that bottom trawling the ocean floor is an abhorrent practise - this should be enoug … THE DAMAGE IS VISIBLE FROM SPACE!!

From Grist: To you, this picture may look like ants marching in a desert, but among ocean experts, it has gone as viral as Britneys shaved head. What you’re seeing is an image of shrimp trawlers off the coast of China, taken from space. Those teeny tiny specs are responsible for destroying huge swaths of seafloor, and thanks to these images, which appeared in the prestigious journal Nature yesterday, scientists now have irrefutable visual evidence to prove what they could only conceptualise before. [ read more ]

Bottom trawling in the international waters of the South pacific will soon be a thing of the past - at least for NZ vessels and any from the 20 countries who recently signed a RFMO agreement in Chile last week. This is a surprisingly good result for the deep sea environment which as been systematically devastated by the practice. orange roughy stocks have almost collapsed and countless acres of ancient slow growing deep sea ecosystem has been literally wiped out.

What’s interesting is the apparent lack of response here in NZ. For years now Greenpeace has been asking for a moratorium on the practice and the industry’s response has at times been apoplectic but now, as an effective moratorium looms, the silence is deafening.

International media has picked up the story but in NZ there has been an almost complete blackout.

The outcomes are particularly relevant to New Zealand. Our fleet is responsible for 90% of the bottom trawling in the South Pacific region. New Zealand delegates told the meeting this week that such measures would severely constrain the ability of the New Zealand fishing industry to continue bottom trawling on the high seas around New Zealand and suggested that it may even have the effect of putting an end to bottom trawling. Well yeah … i think that’s the point isn’t it?