DSCC policy paper

United scientific community calls for: Moratorium on deep-sea bottom trawling on the high seas

In February 2004, 1,136 scientists from 69 countries released a statement expressing profound concern “that human activities, particularly bottom trawling, are causing unprecedented damage to the deep-sea1 coral and sponge communities on continental plateaus and slopes, and on seamounts and mid- ocean ridges.” The statement called on governments and the United Nations to establish a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling. (For a full text of the statement, see www.mcbi.org).

Sea Spider at the Davidson Seamount

off the coast of California, USA. Images courtesy of NOAA and MBARI

POLICY PAPER: SCIENCE – deep sea conservation coalition 1 Among the many significant findings of the past few years are the following: he scientists’ statement represented an • an estimated 500,000 to 10 million species live in the unprecedented call to action by experts in marine deep sea, most of them still undiscovered; sciences and conservation biology – never before • approximately 98 percent of the oceans’ species live Thad such a large number of scientists united in, on or just above the floor of the sea; around a specific marine environmental issue – and a • the estimated number of seamounts ranges from a turning point in the mounting global campaign to halt minimum of 30,000 to a maximum of over 100,000; deep-sea bottom trawling. • seamounts are home to a breathtaking array of species (for example, over 850 species were recently That same month, the Parties to the Convention on found on seamounts in the Tasman and Coral Seas); Biological Diversity (CBD) called on the United Nations • because 15 percent or more of the breathtaking array General Assembly (UNGA) to stop destructive practices theof species being found on seamounts may be harming deep-sea ecosystems. Referring to marine endemic (Coral and Tasman Sea seamounts have areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction that have endemism rates of 29-34 percent), each unsampled seamounts, hydrothermal vents, cold-water corals and seamount is a potential source of numerous other vulnerable ecosystems and features, the Parties undiscovered species; urged the UNGA to: • two-thirds of all known coral species live in waters that are deep, dark, and cold – some live three miles deep and are able to survive in 30°F; • some cold-water corals are 5,000-8,500 years old or “urgently take the necessary short-term, medium-term and more, and some grow into beautiful structures that long-term measures to eliminate/avoid destructive rise up to 35 meters high; practices, consistent with international law, on a scientific • deep-sea corals, sponges and other habitat-forming basis, including the application of precaution, for example, organisms provide protection from currents and consideration on a case by case basis, of interim predators, nurseries for young fish, and feeding, breeding, and spawning areas for hundreds of prohibition of destructive practices adversely impacting the thousands of species; marine biological diversity associated with the areas…” • commercially important deepwater fish and crustacean populations found in the high seas include crabs, shrimp, cod, Pacific cod, orange Underlying the statements made by the scientists roughy, armorhead, grenadier, Chilean sea bass, and the Parties to the CBD is a still-emerging body of jacks, snappers, porgies, sharks and groupers, science. Scientists are just beginning to understand the rockfish, Atka mackerel, and sablefish; diversity, significance and vulnerability of deep-sea • because deep-sea species live in rarely disturbed biodiversity and ecosystems. It is estimated, for environments and tend to be slow growing, late example, that less than one percent of the world’s maturing and endemic, they are exceptionally seamounts have been explored. One of the driving vulnerable to extinction; forces behind the scientists’ letter, in fact, was mounting • deep-sea coral and sponge communities are largely concern that entire deep-sea ecosystems will be untapped sources of natural products with enormous destroyed before they can be subject to scientific study. potential as pharmaceuticals, enzymes, pesticides, More time, more science and more knowledge is cosmetics, and other commercial products; for needed. example: • Gorgonian corals produce antibiotics; • compounds found in certain deep-sea sponges The advent of are potent immunosuppressive and anti-cancer manned and unmanned submersible technology has agents; opened a whole new deep-sea frontier for ocean • some coral species contain the pain-killing scientists and marine biologists. Previously undetected, compounds known as pseudopterosians; life around seamounts, cold-water coral and sponge • seafans contain high concentrations of ecosystems and hydrothermal vents is beginning to be prostaglandins (compounds used to treat asthma observed and studied. The world deep beneath the and heart disease); oceans’ surface is far more diverse than had ever been • ancient deep-sea corals provide valuable records of imagined. Virtually every study finds species that were climate conditions that may assist our understanding previously unknown and are endemic (found in a certain of global climate change. area and nowhere else). While scientists are just beginning to learn about deep-sea ecosystems, a number of devastating human policy2 paperPOLICY PAPER: SCIENCE – deep sea conservation coalition Once destroyed, activities already threaten their existence. Foremost among them is bottom trawl fishing. As coastal fisheries slow-growing deep-sea species are either lost forever or are depleted, and with the advent of more powerful unlikely to recover for decades or centuries. Stable, vessel engines, mapping technology, navigational and living habitats such as coral and sponge communities in fish-finding electronics, and stronger, lighter synthetic particular tend to be both the most heavily damaged net materials, trawlers are fishing seas up to two and the slowest to regenerate. A study in the Gulf of kilometers (1.2 miles) deep. Alaska observed a trawl path that had pulled up one ton of corals. Thirty-one red tree coral colonies had been in Today’s trawlers are capable of fishing deep-sea the 700-meter trawl path observed. Seven years after the canyons and rough seafloor that was once avoided for damage, some of the larger colonies that survived the fear of damaging nets. Deep-sea bottom trawl fishing initial trawl tow were still missing 95–99 percent of their vessels drag huge nets armed with steel plates and heavy branches. No young corals had replaced the dead ones rollers across the seabed, plowing up and pulverizing all in the damaged colonies. in its path in order to capture one or two target commercial species. Fragile coral systems, in particular, Deep seabed trawling poses an enormous threat to sciencestand little chance against this onslaught. If the heavy the extraordinary, often unique biodiversity of deep-sea gear does not demolish the coral outright, it breaks up habitats and ecosystems. Because of the high degree of reef structure, buries coral with sediment or endemism on seamounts and bottom trawl fishing’s inflicts deadly wounds to coral tissue. tendency to cause serial depletion of targeted fish The advent of manned stocks, the extinction of countless other undiscovered In several areas, great harm has already deep-sea species can be predicted unless protective and unmanned been done. Considerable damage to deep- action is taken. water coral communities has been recorded submersible technology off both coasts of North America, off Europe In their February 2004 statement calling for a from Scandinavia to northern Spain, and on moratorium on bottom trawling, the scientists urged that has opened a whole seamounts near Australia and New Zealand. the precautionary principle be used to ensure that the In Norwegian waters, for example, an deep-sea environment is protected and “to avoid the new deep-sea frontier estimated one-third to one-half of the deep- very real threat of serious or irreversible damage to them water reefs have been damaged or destroyed by bottom trawling”. To protect deep-sea biodiversity on for ocean scientists by trawling. Photographs document giant the high seas from continued indiscriminate destruction trawl scars up to 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) long. the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition is joining with the and marine biologists. 1,136 international scientists who signed the statement On the high seas south of Australia, in an by calling on the UNGA to adopt an immediate area known as the South Tasman Rise, moratorium on deep-sea bottom trawl fishing on the observers recorded trawlers bringing up an average of high seas until legally binding regimes for the effective 1.6 tons of coral per hour in their nets in 1997 – the first conservation and management of fisheries and the year of the area’s orange roughy seamount fishery. An protection of biodiversity on the high seas can be estimated 10,000 tons or more of coral were brought up developed, implemented and enforced by the global in the nets of the 20 or so deep-sea trawlers working in community. the area. This figure does not include coral For references to some of the data above and additional information about that was damaged but deep-sea environment and the effects of bottom trawl fishing see: not brought up in the nets. By contrast, the • A. Frewald, J. Fossa, A. Grehan, T. Koslow, J. Roberts, Cold Water Corals – Out of Sight, FOOTNOTE catch of orange roughy No Longer Out of Mind, 10 (UNEP 2004), http://www.unep-wcmc.org/index.html?http: 1 The deep sea starts beyond the – the target species in //www.unep-wcmc.org/press/cold-water-coral-reefs/index.htm~main shallower continental shelf and this fishery – in the first • M. Gianni, High Seas Bottom Fisheries and their Impact on the Biodiversity of Vulnerable includes the slope and rise of the year of the fishery was Deep-Sea Ecosystems, (IUCN/NRDC/CI/WWF 2004), continental margin, deep-ocean reported to be less www.iucn.org/themes/marine/pubs/pubs.htm basins and plains, trenches, mid- than 4,000 tons. In a • S. Roberts and M. Hirshfield, Deep-sea corals: out of sight, but no longer out of mind, ocean ridge systems, smaller ridge matter of a few weeks Front Ecol Environ 2004, 2 (3): 123-130, www.frontiersinecology.org systems, seamounts, plateaus and or months bottom trawl • other underwater features rising from A. Rogers, The Biology, Ecology and Vulnerability of Seamount Communities (IUCN the deep ocean floor. This area fishing can destroy 2004) www.iucn.org/themes/marine/pubs/pubs.htm constitutes over 90 percent of the what took many • A. Rogers, The Biology, Ecology and Vulnerability of Deep-Water Coral Reefs (IUCN ocean bottom and mostly lies beyond thousands of years to 2004), www.iucn.org/themes/marine/pubs/pubs.htm 200 nautical miles from shore. create.

POLICY PAPER: SCIENCE – deep sea conservation policycoalition paper3 Additional policy papers in this series include: DSCC DSCC policy paper

• Deep-sea Thedestructive bottom trawling powerof deep-sea bottom trawling on the high seas

During the past several decades, it has become possible to plow up deep-sea ecosystems that have existed for millennia, if not longer. Today, as a result, well-capitalized fleets from a handful of wealthier nations1 are destroying some of the planet’s last, most ecologically rich frontiers in search of commercial fish and crustacean species.

Until relatively recently, fishing the deep sea’s rugged floors and canyons was impossible. Advances in bottom trawl technology, however, have put the unreachable within reach. More powerful engines, bigger nets, more precise mapping, more advanced navigational and fish-finding electronics have enabled fishing vessels to drag fishing gear across the ocean bottom as much as two kilometers (1.2 miles) deep. Bottom trawling is, in fact, now the preferred method for fishing the ocean bottom on the high seas, accounting for approximately 80 percent of the total high seas bottom fisheries catch in 2001. The Deep Sea Conservation Bottom trawl net on winch. New Zealand 1990. © Greenpeace DSCCPOLICY PAPER: DEEP-SEA BOTTOM TRAWLING – deep sea conservation coalition 1 policy paper Coalition, an alliance of over • Economics Economics ... 30 international organisations, andequityparted deep seas the nots. have s and f have story o ped ays, a evelo ny w more d a from representing millions of d, fleets p seas is, in m eplete e dee ore d fish th m nal

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