Swiss marine conservation organization fights back against trawls
Published: Wednesday, Oct 23rd 2024, 06:10
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In a report, the Swiss marine conservation organization Oceancare has warned of the consequences of trawling in fisheries. The organization complained that the practice devastates huge areas of seabed and is harmful to the climate.
Oceancare praises the EU's action plan to end harmful bottom trawling in protected areas by 2030. However, the organization is concerned that the new EU Commission could soften the plan following the legal landslide in Europe.
"We need a jolt to ensure that there is no deviation from this action plan," Nicolas Entrup, responsible for international cooperation at Oceancare, told the German news agency DPA. Instead, the EU plan must become the global standard at the 2025 UN Ocean Conference in Nice.
Habitats permanently damaged
"This report summarizes the evidence that bottom trawling is a fundamentally destructive practice that harms marine habitats and decimates marine life," the authors write. Trawls are often kilometer-long nets that are dragged through open water or as bottom trawls across the seabed. Sea turtles, rays, dolphins and other animals that should not be caught often become entangled in them as so-called bycatch.
The seabed has been particularly badly affected by this type of fishing in parts of the Mediterranean and the North and Baltic Seas, off the Atlantic coast of Spain and Ireland and also on a large scale in Asia.
Alternatives possible
The ecosystem is then permanently disrupted, seagrass meadows or oyster reefs are torn away, the oxygen balance and the composition of the seabed are changed. The release of carbon bound in the seabed and the fuel consumption of the ships that tow the heavy equipment behind them contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions from fishing, the report continues.
Measures to contain the damage could include artificial reefs that keep out bottom trawlers. However, this would only work on a small scale. Bottom trawls could be banned in larger areas. Other nets could also be used to reduce bycatch, and static nets could be used instead of trawls. Trawling employs millions of people. If the practice were to decline, new income opportunities would have to be created for employees.
©Keystone/SDA
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