The meeting is in the final stages of agreeing on a convention
to govern bottom trawling and some other fisheries in the Pacific.
New Zealand fishing boats use bottom trawling to target orange
roughy, a long-lived deep sea fish which is very slow to
reproduce.
Greenpeace is calling for the meeting to adopt measures to
prevent damage caused by deep sea gillnets, by new fisheries and to
reverse the declines in an important fish stock off the coast of
South America, jack mackerel, which has been seriously overfished.
A 130-kilometre long gillnet was recently found in the ocean off
Antarctica, set at 1500 metres, which had caught 29 tonnes of
Antarctic toothfish as well as a number of skates. Gillnets are
banned in the north-east Atlantic at depths of more than 200
metres.
Greenpeace adviser and lawyer Duncan Currie, who is attending
the meeting said a new scientific report published in Europe today
describing a systematic failure by fisheries managers in the North
Atlantic highlighted the need to properly regulate bottom
trawling.
"This report is a wake-up call to all governments that they have
to start taking their responsibilities of managing the deep sea
fisheries seriously. This damage both to the environment and to
deep sea fish stocks must stop now."
Currie said Greenpeace agreed with the Deep Sea Conservation
Coalition (DSCC), an umbrella group of organisations concerned
about the damage caused by bottom trawling in the deep ocean, which
says it is time to halt unregulated deep sea bottom fishing.
The report, entitled 'The Implementation of UN Resolution 61/105
in the Management of Deep-Sea Fisheries on the High Seas,' finds
that the measures taken to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems and
deep-sea species on the high seas in the North Atlantic are at best
inadequate and at worst non-existent.
The report examines the data available from Regional Fisheries
Management Organisations (RFMOs), the bodies tasked with
implementing the United Nations (UN) Resolution. Matthew Gianni,
Policy Advisor to the DSCC said, "The UN resolution was designed to
provide protection for vulnerable deep sea areas and species in
lieu of a moratorium. The RFMOs studied in the report have failed
to fully implement the resolution, without exception.
"The only alternative is to impose a temporary prohibition on
all bottom fishing for deep-sea species in these areas until the
RFMOs do what they have committed to do through the UN and prove
that they can fish responsibly."
Next week, the Sustainable Fisheries resolution negotiations
recommence at UN headquarters in New York to determine further
recommendations needed in this year's General Assembly Resolution
to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems and sustainably manage
deep-sea fisheries.
Other contacts: Duncan Currie, who is attending the Auckland and New York negotiations, can be contacted on 021 632 335. email: duncanc@globelaw.com
Sam Leiva, from Greenpeace Chile, is attending the Auckland negotiations, and can be contacted on +56 982 309252
Phil Crawford Greenpeace New Zealand media & communications, 021 2299 594
Notes: IPSO has released pre-publication extracts of its report ‘The Implementation of UN Resolution 61/105 in the Management of Deep-Sea Fisheries on the High Seas,’ The extracts cover the NAFO and NEAFC areas plus the key findings and recommendations. The complete report will be published in February of next year. The pre-publication report is available by request from Duncan Currie or at http://www.savethehighseas.org/display.cfm?ID=205.
The South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organization (SPRFMO) meeting is held this week in Auckland and is expected to end on Friday. The UN Sustainable Fisheries Negotiations in New York run from the 16-20, and 23rd November.
Exp. contact date: 2009-12-10 00:00:00