Conservationists blast bottom trawling

Conservation groups berated delegates from 29 countries including Canada on Friday for failing to take action to protect deep-sea creatures and coral.

Meeting in New Zealand to develop guidelines to protect South Pacific ocean fisheries, delegates decided to create a management organization for the fisheries, but didn't fulfil environmentalists' requests for a temporary ban on bottom trawling.

"They have chosen to sit on their hands and sacrifice deep-sea life while talks continue for many years," Cath Wallace of New Zealand's Environment and Conservation Organizations told the Associated Press.

"Just as much deep-sea life is being wiped out today as last week; there is still no protection in place and nothing in the way of specific measures has been adopted to protect the environment."

Bottom trawling is the controversial fishing practice of dragging large nets weighted with chains, roller or rock-hopper gear across the seafloor to catch groundfish species. Greepeace and other groups argue the practice destroys deep-sea species.

There are currently few controls to protect non-migratory fish, such as orange roughy, squid and mackerel, from fishing in the area, which extends from the eastern edge of the South Indian Ocean to South America.

New Zealand delegation head Stan Crothers agreed progress on bottom-trawling was slow.

"We had hoped to initiate interim measures to address some urgent issues, such as the adverse impact of bottom trawling, but progress in this area wasn't as rapid as we would have liked," Crothers said in a statement.

Carmen Gravatt, a Greenpeace oceans campaigner in New Zealand, said the "solution is a global moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters through the UN."

In Canada, Greenpeace has been pressuring Ottawa for years to implement a moratorium on high-seas bottom trawling.

The countries' next meeting is expected in November.

"In the meantime, ancient deep water corals are being smashed" by bottom trawling, said Wallace.