New Zealand’s leading environmental organisations have today joined with recreational fishers to call on the Government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts. The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), ECO, Forest and Bird, Greenpeace, LegaSea and WWF-New Zealand are urging the public to sign a petition to the Minister of Fisheries, Stuart Nash, and the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage, calling on them to ban bottom trawling on seamounts and other ecologically sensitive areas. The groups argue that Aotearoa’s antiquated legislation on bottom trawling lags behind the rest of the world.

“The indiscriminate and disrespectful bottom trawl method that sees heavy gear dragged across the delicate and vulnerable benthic habitat is no longer acceptable. What the net brings to the surface is a small fraction of the destruction to unseen benthos. It has to stop,” says Scott Macindoe, from LegaSea.

Globally one million species face extinction. New Zealand, alone, has one of the highest proportions of species at risk in the world. The groups argue we should be creating biodiversity safe havens on land and sea rather than allowing business as usual to continue.Scott Macindoe media@legasea.co.nz