Fishing & Outdoors Vol 4 Issue 9

With the Green Party recently calling on the Government to ban bottom trawling on seamounts following the release of an industry white paper on sustainable bottom trawling, we take a closer look at the issue in our front-page story.

Sealord’s recently released report at a webinar saying that “marine science and fishing expertise show we can sustainably meet global and local demand for seamount-caught New Zealand fish species by fishing on just 11% of seamounts” is at the heart of the discussion, with Green Party’s spokesperson for fisheries, Eugenie Sage, saying the Government should not be swayed by the fishing industry’s “attempt to greenwash some of its harmful activities.”

Environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, too, have been protesting against bottom trawling, saying “ocean protection should be based on what is ecologically important to protect, not on what the fishing industry doesn’t want to exploit”.

In other news, DOC has released a draft plan to protect sharks, the new, shorter whitebait season begins this year, and Sika Show returns on 29 and 30 October 2022.

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