Trawlers annihilating seabed, says scientist

The crew of the trawler Waipori dump ancient coral dredged up in their net. Picture / Greenpeace

Bottom-trawling is "absolute annihilation" of the seabed and must be stopped, says a New Zealand marine scientist.

Dr Steve O'Shea, a marine biologist at the Auckland University of Technology who specialises in the study of the mysterious giant squid, said he had had a "gutsful" of the misinformation about the effects of bottom-trawling.

"We are being misled. Bottom-trawling is environmentally unjustifiable," he said.

As the fishing industry and environmentalists wage a war of words and dispute figures of exactly how much of the ocean floor is being affected by bottom-trawling, Dr O'Shea said it was time the Government lived up to its promise to impose marine reserve orders on 10 per cent of New Zealand's marine environment by 2010.

"There should be some urgency. For God's sake let's do something practical now before it's too late."

Greenpeace has been waging an intensive campaign against bottom-trawling, dogging trawl boats on the high seas round New Zealand to highlight what it says is a practice that is wiping out deepsea marine life.

On Sunday, the organisation photographed a New Zealand vessel, Waipori, pulling up a piece of "gorgonian" coral that it says is centuries old.

Greenpeace protesters, working from inflatables launched from the Rainbow Warrior, also took photos of a rare crab being caught in the Waipori's net.

The fishing boat was working in an area known as the West Norfolk Ridge, 320km off northern New Zealand.