Forest and Bird release letters, slam trawling companies over seabed protection

Wednesday, 12 June 2019

Orange Roughy pictured at a market (file photo).

Forest and Bird are claiming recently released letters show Talley's fishing co, along with other bottom trawling companies, lobbied against seabed protection in the South Pacific.

Forest and Bird released the information on the eve of Talley's appearance in court on charges of illegal bottom trawling.

'New Zealand fishing companies have been fishing for orange roughy, claiming it's sustainable, and threatening legal action when other countries try to limit the permanent damage they are causing,' Forest and Bird chief executive Kevin Hague said in a statement.

'It's no more sustainable than smashing up kauri forest to catch kiwi.'

Forest and Bird chief executive Kevin Hague says trawling activity is known to harm the ocean floor (file photo).

* Fishing company denies unauthorised trawling in Tasman Sea

* Bottom trawling for fish causing 'permanent damage' to deep sea forests

* Environment groups lambast fishing industry over bird deaths and sea floor damage**

In a statement from Forest and Bird, it claims the letters, which were released under the Official Information Act, show efforts by the High Seas Group, of which Talley's is a member, to block a new rule limiting the destructive impact of bottom trawling in the South Pacific.

Corals, sponges and fish pictured on the rocky slopes of Graveyard Seamount, Chatham Rise (file photo).

The statement says that in the letters, the High Seas Group threatens legal action against the Government.

The letters were sent to Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash, and NZ First Ministers Winston Peters and Shane Jones.

'The fishing industry spends big bucks on ads insisting we should trust them, but at the very same time, they were trying to prevent protection of the South Pacific's most fragile ocean floor ecosystems by threatening our Government.'

The High Seas Group of companies was opposing a 'move on' rule, which would require bottom trawlers to stop fishing in an area and move on if they pull up too many corals, sponges, and other vulnerable and long-lived ocean life.

The Group failed in its bid to block the rule after other South Pacific countries refused to cave to its demands, and the move-on rule came into effect in April.

'New Zealand bottom trawlers, including Talley's, fought against an extremely modest rule which allows a maximum coral by-catch of 250kg. It is hard to see how they have any interest in sustainable fishing, when they fight so hard to continue an activity known to completely trash our ocean floor,' Hague said.

The move on limits are: 250kg of stony corals, 50kg of sponges, 60kg of soft corals, 40kg of anemones, 15kg of sea fans, and 5kg of black corals.

The rule has been implemented by the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO), and covers a huge area of the high seas from South Australia and North of Papua New Guinea in the west across to South America in the East and from the equator to near Antarctica.

New Zealand researchers recently found that bottom trawling may be causing permanent damage to deep sea forests.