Amsterdam, Netherlands – In a new film released today, Greenpeace International exposes the dramatic damage caused by bottom trawling and the destruction of a fragile ecosystem in the Emperor Seamount in the North Pacific, and calls for a new marine protected area on the high seas to ban all fishing activity.
Footage collected over several years by researchers at Florida State University [1]Showing the scars of bottom trawls thousands of meters below the waves. This powerful evidence highlights the destruction of this precious ecosystem by years of bottom trawling, which involves dragging heavy fishing gear to the ocean floor, destroying fragile communities that take thousands of years to grow.
Visuals are available in the Greenpeace Media Library. here.
“The deep sea is a wonderful and mysterious world full of life. This footage of ghost gear scattered across the ocean floor hundreds of meters deep shows the extent of the impact of the fishing industry and the urgent need to protect these polluted seamounts so they can recover into the rich communities seen in unaffected areas.” explained Dr. Amy Barko-Taylor, professor in Florida State University’s Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.
The Emperor’s Seamounts, a remote group of over 800 seamounts, are an ecological and cultural hotspot. [2] And there are fragile marine ecosystems (VMEs) that are home to a variety of cold-water corals and sponges, crustaceans, starfish, and many species of marine mammals. Trawlers target these areas because of their abundance of marine life.
Bottom trawling is a preferred method by commercial fishing companies because of its potential to catch large numbers of animals at one time. However, it is an indiscriminate fishing method that destroys the marine ecosystem, often attracts significant amounts of bycatch, threatens marine biodiversity, and endangers the health of the fishery itself.
“Even in the most remote areas of the ocean, in the great silence of the deep sea, industrial fishing is causing environmental destruction., Chris Thorne, Greenpeace’s ocean protection campaign manager, added: “The Emperor’s Sea should be one of the first areas protected using the World Ocean Treaty and the first of many new protected areas that should cover 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030..”
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2006 calling for the protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems, including seamounts, from bottom fishing. However, each year, national and regional fisheries organizations delay action. Ratification of the World Ocean Treaty is more urgent than ever to protect vulnerable ecosystems without further delay.
It is estimated that only 20 vessels from six countries are engaged in bottom trawling in the high seas. But while the destruction is large and long-lasting, the catch from the high seas is only a small fraction of the global marine catch. [3]In April, the North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC), the agency that oversees the area’s fisheries, defeated a U.S. and Canadian proposal to ban bottom trawling in the Emperor Sea, despite the fact that only two vessels are currently known to be bottom fishing in the area. [4]
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contact lens:
Magali Rubino, Global Media Director for Greenpeace France’s Protect the Oceans campaign: [email protected] +33 7 78 41 78 78 (Greenwich Mean Time +1)
Greenpeace International Press Desk:
[email protected]+31 (0) 20 718 2470 (available 24 hours a day)
Note:
[1] This footage was captured by ROV and AUV submersibles in 2016/17 and 2012 during two projects led by Dr. Amy Barko-Taylor (funded by the National Science Foundation).
Dr. Bacon-Taylor is a leading expert on imperial dissolution.
[2] The Yellow Emperor’s homeland has a very rich cultural history spanning thousands of years.
see ““Forgotten Maritime Highway: The Maritime Cultural Heritage of the Emperor’s Sea Mountains with Significance for High Seas Conservation” (2024)
Papahānaumokuākea and the wider ocean area beyond hold deep cosmological and traditional significance as the ancestral environment of Native Hawaiian culture and as an embodiment of the Hawaiian concept of kinship between people and the natural world.
[3] The majority of target catches from these vessels in the high seas are made up of four species: the pelagic stingray from the North Pacific, the ornate Alphonsino stingray from the North Pacific, South Indian Ocean and North Atlantic, the orange roughy stingray from the southwest Pacific, South Indian Ocean and Northeast Atlantic, and the round-nosed grenadier from the Northeast Atlantic.
“Protecting the World’s Oceans”, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition
[4] NPFC members did not adopt the US and Canada proposals, largely due to opposition from Japan, meaning the Commission failed to live up to its commitments and obligations under international law to manage high seas fisheries to “protect the biodiversity of the marine environment.”
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Chris Sohn is a campaigner for Greenpeace UK, working on Greenpeace’s ocean conservation campaigns.
Greenpeace research vessel Rainbow Warrior has completed a five-week expedition in the North Pacific, documenting the destructive fishing practices and working conditions of Taiwanese longline vessels around the Emperor Sea.
Greenpeace investigators have documented instances of longline fishing vessels catching entire lengths of fish and shark kills on the high seas.
