• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Environmental Group Monitoring Deep Sea Draggers Off East Coast

Posted on: Monday, 1 August 2005, 15:00 CDT

ST. JOHN'S, Nfld. (CP) - Environmental activists with Greenpeace say they boarded two foreign fishing vessels on Monday and searched for evidence of damage caused by deep-sea trawling.

The environmental group has taken to the high seas off the East Coast as part of its campaign for a moratorium on the controversial fishing practice, where massive nets are dragged along the ocean floor to scoop up catch such as shrimp.

A spokeswoman for Greenpeace says crews on two vessels have allowed the activists to board, while others have spoken to them via radio.

Still others have avoided them altogether, said Bunny McDiarmid, an activist on board the Esperanza.

"We're not interfering with anyone's fishing activities. We're just trying to see what is coming up in the nets and see what is being discarded," McDiarmid said Monday from the ship.

"We want to get across to them that we're not anti-fishing or anti-fishermen, but this is an unsustainable way of doing it."

Bottom trawling, or dragging, is banned in specific areas within Canadian jurisdiction, including the Sable Gully, a vast submarine canyon off the coast of Nova Scotia that is home to rare coral and the endangered northern bottlenose whale.

But it is permitted in most areas and Canadian vessels are among the international fleet dragging waters patrolled by the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization, just outside Canada's 200-mile exclusive economic zone.

Greenpeace estimates 60 per cent of the world's bottom trawling takes place in these waters, most of it on the sensitive ecosystem of the Grand Banks.

It has been difficult to observe the bycatch brought up in nets from the ocean floor, McDiarmid said, but "we've seen sponge and we've seen other fish species that live on the bottom that are destroyed in the process."

A coalition of environmental groups, including the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and the Ecology Action Centre, have tried to sue the federal fisheries department to put an end to dragging.

They lost the case last fall, following a three-year court battle.

Federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan has rejected the call for a moratorium.

"It's our position that we know that any gear type can be destructive when it's used improperly," Regan said last week.

"We think you have to identify the areas that are sensitive and work to protect those areas . . . I think the way we're doing it will achieve the result they're looking for by focusing on ecosystem management."

There are normally two Canadian vessels patrolling the international waters off the East Coast, said an official with the Fisheries Department.

Canadian officers also fly over the area daily, weather permitting, said Jan Woodford, and each vessel is equipped with a monitoring beacon so Canadian officials know where they are at any given time.

One of the vessels cited by Greenpeace was boarded and inspected on July 26.

"Everything was in order at that time," Woodford said.

McDiarmid said that's the problem.

"It's absolutely legal to destroy the entire bottom of the seabed out here. It's totally legal to do that while you're fishing," she said.

Source: Canadian Press

More News in this Category