Media release - October 5, 2004
The destruction of ancient marine ecosystems, giant squid, snot eels, the possible extinction of species and whole habitats crushed under giant machinery – not the latest science fiction movie, but scientific fact.
The Greenpeace ship, MV Esperanza, currently campaigning to stop
the oceans from becoming a nuclear highway for dangerous plutonium
shipments, will soon set sail to the deep ocean of the North
Atlantic to expose the impact on deep-sea life of the most
destructive activity on the high seas.
High seas bottom trawling literally ploughs up the ocean floor
in search of fish and the fleets often target seamounts - the least
explored mountains on the planet, that rise more than a 1,000
metres from the ocean floor (1). Seamounts are teeming with
deep-sea life, some of which is undiscovered by science and much is
unique to individual seamounts.
"Bottom trawlers are effectively clear-cutting areas as rich in
life as any rainforest. In minutes they can devastate corals that
have taken millennia to grow and wipe out species even before
science has had time to study them," said Dima Litvinov, aboard the
MV Esperanza. "Every day wasted just discussing the need for action
is possibly another deep sea habitat gone."
Scientists and other environmental groups are supporting the
call for action (2). The Greenpeace ship will spotlight the
deep-sea destroyers as part of the global campaign calling for an
international moratorium on high seas bottom trawling at the United
Nations General Assembly session this November.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
(1) Less than one percent of the global fishing fleet practises
high seas bottom trawling (a). It is not an economic necessity. But
the damage that is done is incalculable. Thousands of scientists
have already condemned the practise (b).
(a) Spain, Russia, New Zealand, Portugal, Norway, Estonia,
Denmark/Faroe Islands, Japan, Lithuania, Iceland and Latvia
(b) Scientists' Statement on Protecting the World's Deep-Sea
Coral and Sponge Ecosystems - Marine Conservation Biology
Institute, Feb 2004
(2) Greenpeace is a member of the
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, an international alliance of
organisations, representing millions of people in countries around
the world, which is calling for a moratorium on high seas bottom
trawling.