Bottom Trawling Hurts Ecological Systems

LONDON (AP) ─ Fishermen who rake giant nets across the ocean floor to maximize their catch are destroying unique and unexplored ecological systems, according to a U.N. draft environmental report made public Wednesday.

Just over half of the underwater mountain and coral ecosystems in the world are located beyond national boundaries, leaving them unregulated and vulnerable to the damaging practice known as bottom trawling, the report said.

Trawlers' nets shatter coral and churn up clouds of sediment that smother sea life, the report said. The worst damage often occurs to underwater mountains that are home to thousands of species of coral and fish, some still unidentified by scientists, the report said.

"In the case of deep-sea trawling it is, therefore, essential that the burden of proof shifts to governments and fisheries when deciding whether it is appropriate to exploit these irreplaceable ecosystems,'' said Alex Rogers, one of the study's authors.

U.N. delegates are scheduled to discuss a moratorium on bottom trawling next month in New York.

The General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution in 2004 urging all nations to consider temporary bans on trawling. Nations whose fleets do much of the world's trawling, including Spain, Japan and Iceland, oppose a broader moratorium

Fernando Curceio, director of Spain's Fisheries Resources Department, called the report alarmist and said it lacked scientific basis. He said the area where Spanish ships trawl in the southwest Atlantic Ocean was just "a platform of sand,'' not a vulnerable environment.

"We are not trawling over ecosystems that are in danger,'' he said. "We're not prepared to tell our boats to stop fishing when there's nothing to protect.''

The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition on Tuesday called opposition within the European Union the most significant obstacle to the moratorium.

"Opposition flies in the face of scientific evidence, public concern and plain common sense,'' said the coalition's Matthew Gianni. "The rest of the world cannot allow itself to be dictated to and its global heritage to be plundered by a few states protecting short-term economic interests.''

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