Limiting the use of bottom trawls in the deep sea

Just received this via email. If your a scientist  please go sign.

Hi folks,

I am sending you this special plea to ask for your help in  limiting the use of bottom trawls in the deep sea. We know from more than 250 research papers that bottom trawling is easily the most habitat destructive method of fishing the world has ever seen, and now bottom trawls are being used on seamounts and selected areas of the continental slope.

The European Parliament has before it a bill that would require all deep sea fishing vessels in the EU to change to some other gear over the next two years. Money is being made available to help this happen. And all the fish currently being caught can be caught with bottom hooks on a long line. Telmo Morato in the Azores has shown that it takes about 260 sets of bottom hooks to bring up the same about of bycatch as one bottom trawl. So there are good reasons to phase out bottom trawling.

From an economic perspective there are not very many boats doing this kind of fishing, and the number of people employed is quite small. Further, in France and Spain, the two main countries involved in deep sea bottom trawling in Europe, the boats are owned by large million-dollar corporations whose operations are subsidized by the EU. So this will not cause an economic hardship for small boat owners.

The bill in front of the EU parliament is being considered by two committees, the Environment Committee and the Fisheries Committee. The Environment Committee has already voted 58 to 1 to allow it to be debated by the full parliament. The Fisheries Committee has been dragging its feet, primarily due to maneuvering by the French and Spanish delegates. It needs a push….

So, what I want you to do is join the 270 other scientists who have already signed a petition addressed to the president of France asking him to change France’s position on this legislation and allow it to go to the full parliament for a vote. If it does, it will probably pass and become law, making Europe the first region of the world to actively protect its deep-sea fauna.

The petition of course is in French. If you do not read French we want (in order) your first name, last name, e-mail, city (put your institution if you like rather than city) and country.

Here is the page with the petition:

http://petition.bloomassociation.org/

Here is the page with the list of people who have already signed.

http://www.bloomassociation.org/declaration-de-soutien-pour-proteger-les-eaux-profondes

Both pages translate very well with Google Translate.

You will see that some institutions with big marine programs are well represented and others are not. If yours is one of the “are not”, could you please circulate this on your local list.

Thanks so much for your help. It is critical that the world’s biologists come together on this. It will be precedent-setting and may slow the onslaught of deep-sea habitat destruction.

Best regards,

Les Watling
Professor
Department of Biology
University of Hawaii at Manoa