Fisheries body to assess bottom trawling and possibly restrict practice
MONTREAL — The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization will assess the impact of bottom trawling on several fishing grounds outside Canada's 200-mile limit and close them if it finds the fishing method harms vulnerable sea life, the fisheries management group announced Wednesday.
Environmentalists at a NAFO meeting in Montreal praised the decision after years of arguing that bottom trawling or dragging destroys corals, sea mounts, sponges and other marine life and habitat.
The fishing method involves dragging heavy nets with metal gates along the ocean floor. The nets scoop up everything in their path.
"The decisions made this week mark a significant step forward in a global shift to more sustainable fishing practices," Susanna Fuller, spokeswoman for the Halifax-based Ecology Action Centre, said in a statement.
"The real task now is establishing regulations to implement this decision."
NAFO, which manages commercial fishing outside Canada's 200-mile limit, has pledged to complete the mapping of the fishing grounds and evaluation of marine life by the end of this year.
It will recommend that areas should be closed or fisheries restricted where damage to deep-sea species can't be prevented.
The European Commission said it welcomed the "pioneering" move.
"The NAFO decision was based on a detailed proposal from the European Union, supplemented by provisions tabled by Canada," the commission said in a statement.
The commission also said it believes the initiative "sets an excellent precedent" for other regional fisheries management organizations.
The agreement between NAFO's members, including Canada, the European Union, Norway, Iceland, Russia and the United States, comes almost two years after the United Nations decided against banning the practice.
Canada was among a group of countries opposed to a blanket ban in December 2006.
Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said such a move would be unenforceable.
The UN instead agreed to enhance protection measures under fisheries management organizations, such as NAFO.
At the time, the chairman of one of Canada's largest seafood producers said there wasn't any proof that bottom trawling damages the environment.
Still, Clearwater Seafoods (TSX:CLR.DB) founder John Risley said he was not opposed to banning bottom trawling in sensitive areas.
In a 2004 report, the UN identified bottom trawling as the most serious threat to deep-sea ecosystems.
"We're pleased that NAFO has agreed to implement most of the key provisions of the UN ... resolution," Matthew Gianni, policy adviser to the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, said in a statement Wednesday.
Beth Hunter, a spokeswoman for Greenpeace Canada, agreed.
"The agreement adopted by NAFO . . . could set a precedent for protection of deep-sea ecosystems across the whole of the North Atlantic."
Last September, NAFO closed a large area of the Grand Banks to bottom trawling for five years. The group said the decision would allow a coral monitoring and research program to collect data for future strategies.
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