A major announcement this week out of Chile, where a conference of South Pacific nations has agreed to ban the practice of bottom trawling, effective September 30.
Bottom trawling is a practice where huge nets are dragged across the bottom of the ocean floor, catching large schools of fish that live near the ocean floor, and in the process destroying coral and other ecosystems at the bottom of the ocean.
Back in November, scientists warned that the world’s wild fish stocks will be virtually non-existent in 50 years, if fishing continues at its current pace.
Thus, this weeks announcement is a major step forward in reversing this alarming trend. The area encompassing this new agreement constitutes one-quarter of the world’s oceans.
“This is the most significant meeting of fishing nations since the UN General Assembly resolution and it has done what the resolution required,” said Matthew Gianni of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition. “It can be done, it has been done, and it’s time for all countries to do the same in all other ocean regions.”
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