The Rainbow Warrior sets
out from Auckland to defend deep sea life.
01/06/2005 — A year since its first expedition
in defence of deep sea life, the Rainbow Warrior
has left Auckland to once again demonstrate
the devastation caused by bottom trawling.
Last year we exposed the New Zealand and Belize-flagged
bottom trawlers in the Tasman Sea ... will
this year bring a repeat performance?
Dave Walsh, web editor on board the Rainbow
Warrior again this year, gave the following
account of the 2004 expedition that followed
the activities of seven ships as they trawled
seamounts for target species of orange roughy.
"We watched them raising tonnes of fish,
corals - and even rocks from the ocean floor!
Dozens of species of 'unwanted' deep sea life,
snapped from habitat 1000km below us, were
turfed over the side of the bottom trawlers,
internal organs blown apart from the violent
change in pressure. Hundreds of albatross
- a bird usually considered a loner, drifting
at the mercy of the winds - squabbled over
the dead or dying fish."
Among the huge amounts of bottom dwelling
marine life including fish, sea stars, squid,
sea urchins and ghost sharks that were hauled
up and discarded, was a delicate branch of
endangered black coral, a species listed on
the UN Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) for over 20 years.
Black coral is also protected in adjacent
New Zealand waters. Corals are the foundation
of unique deep-sea communities and their destruction
affects everything else living in or near
them on the sea floor.
Unwanted bycatch, including a starfish, far
outweighs the target catch of orange roughy
in a deep sea trawl from international waters
in the Tasman Sea. Greenpeace along with more
than a thousand scientists are supporting
the call for a moratorium on high seas bottom
trawling, because of the vast amount of marine
life that is destroyed by this fishing method.
Speaking at a press conference on board the
Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour to launch
the current expedition, Oceans campaigner
Carmen Gravatt said "Bottom trawling
is the most destructive fishing practice in
the world. The deep sea is the largest pool
of undiscovered life on Earth. Bottom trawling
these unknown worlds is like blowing up Mars
before we get there."
Recently, in collaboration with the Scottish
Association for Marine Science (SAMS), we
also concluded the exploration of a little-known
coral reef complex off the west of Scotland.
Using remotely operated vehicles (small, unmanned
submarines), scientists studied and documented
the reef, its cold water corals (lophelia
pertusa) and the numerous species it is thought
to host. Previous surveys of the reef conducted
by SAMS found that parts of the lophelia coral
formation are 3,800 years old and the base
may be over 10,000 years old.
Next week, our political advisor Karen Sack
will speak at a UN meeting on Oceans. Will
the Rainbow Warrior once again unearth crucial
evidence so the UN can see with their own
eyes that a moratorium is needed?
"Each day bottom trawling continues,
more deep sea life gets wiped out and the
situation becomes more critical," said
Gravatt. "A moratorium on bottom trawling
in international waters is urgently needed
to protect life in the deep sea."
