Former PM Helen Clark wants an end to trawling on seamounts and seabed mining

Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Māui dolphin and the New Zealand sea lion are on a countdown to extinction – so why do politicians drag their feet?

Former Prime Minister Helen Clark has thrown her weight behind calls to ban bottom trawling on seamounts.

The fishing practice sees weighted nets dragged along the sea floor, hauling some of our most popular fish: orange roughy, hoki and oreo. Conservation groups argue trawling destroys delicate ecosystems that thrive on seamounts.

Clark says oceans are under tremendous pressure from the effects of climate change and threats from deep sea mining and bottom trawling.

She expressed surprise that trawling was still permitted in New Zealand’s waters. It has the only fleet still bottom trawling on seamounts in the region’s international waters.

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“It is a concern to me that New Zealand still bottom trawls on sea mounts in the South Pacific high seas areas, and the Tasman Sea… there’s incredible damage being done to our seamounts from this kind of activity,” Clark said.

The Helen Clark Foundation is an Aotearoa New Zealand-based independent, non-partisan public policy think tank.

The former administrator of the UN Development Program was speaking on a panel discussing a high seas treaty, currently under negotiation. It would enhance marine protection outside national boundaries.

She said she was also concerned about the harm caused by deep sea mining. That currently isn’t happening in New Zealand waters, but coastal sand extraction is happening in eight locations.

Eugenie Sage, Green Party spokesperson for conservation and the environment, pictured at the ‘Defend the Deep’ mural.

Clark said humans are on a path to destroying ecosystems on which we rely. “If you think about what we’re doing to the high seas with our bottom trawling and our overfishing, and the rest of it, would we tolerate that in New Zealand with our forest?” Clark said.

“We have put all our public forests under permanent protection, and we have strong protection around the native forest on private land… we have to get real.”

This week marks SeaWeek, an annual national event to promote marine conservation. On Tuesday, street artist Cinzah and Wellington artist Sheyne Tuffery completed a new mural featuring an orange Roughy, on Wellington’s Egmont Street.

Karli Thomas, of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, National MP Scott Simpson and WWF-NZ CEO Livia Esterhazy watch the finishing touches being applied to the painting.

It was commissioned by the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and WWF-New Zealand, the third in a series which were also painted in Auckland and Dunedin. A recent petition to ban trawling on seamounts has gained over 70,000 signatures and is being considered by Parliament’s environment select committee.

Conservation groups argue trawling destroys delicate ecosystems that thrive on seamounts. The ocean floor landforms create an upwelling of nutrients which attract marine species to feed, and for centuries have been known as good fishing sites.

Greenpeace have launched a new video on bottom trawling on seamounts, starring presenter Mandy Kupenga who fronted Māori TV's Get Your Fish On.

The underwater mountains are home to delicate, slow-growing coral, and sea sponges, which are at risk of being destroyed by the heavy fishing gear.

About 90 per cent of the catch, for both inshore and deep sea fisheries, comes from bottom trawling. But only a small fraction occurs on the underwater mount

Livia Esterhazy, WWF chief executive visited the mural with National MP Scott Simpson. Green Party MP, and select committee chair Eugenie Sage watched the painting on Monday.

“Our marine ecosystems are in crisis and time is running out,” Esterhazy said.

Simpson, the party’s environment spokesperson, said, “It's increasingly difficult for commercial operators to think they have social licence to do what they're doing in terms of seamounts. If this was commercial behaviour of a similar kind on shore, there would be huge amounts of public concern and angst.”

Simpson believes the fishing industry may move before the Government on the issue.

“I would have thought that part of being a responsible corporate citizen was to be listening to the views of the public and to having a good understanding of the environmental science, which I think is compelling.

“Basically, just do the right thing. I don't think businesses should necessarily have to wait for the heavy hand of government legislation or regulation for them to do that. And we see that happening increasingly, with commercial operators around climate issues around other environmental issues. I don't see why it should be any different for commercial fishing operators.”

This week Greenpeace have also launched a new video on bottom trawling on seamounts, starring presenter Mandy KupengV's Get Your Fish On.

The fishing industry argues the practice is well-managed. Vessels furrow repeatedly over the same narrow tracks – they wouldn’t plunder an entire seamount.

Since 2006, bottom trawling has been banned in a third of New Zealand's waters (although a large percentage of these areas were never viable for the method in the first place). Now only 3.5 per cent, or 122,000sq km, of the exclusive economic zone (or EEZ) is trawled.