One Ocean, Many Worlds of Life - Convention on Biological Diversity

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in the prey they capture, bottom trawls can have devastating impacts on
seafloor habitat, as they grind over, knock down and crush everything
in their path. Pictures <strong>of</strong> seabed that initially show vibrant communities
<strong>of</strong> plants and animals reveal, in the aftermath <strong>of</strong> a bottom trawl’s passage
through the area, a veritable marine desert. So complete is the destruction
wrought by bottom trawling that it is variously referred to as “clearcutting
the ocean” and “stripmining the sea.” At particular risk are deep-sea corals,
which grow on seamounts and which, because <strong>of</strong> their exceptionally long
lives and very slow growth rates (generally in the region <strong>of</strong> 1 mm a year)
cannot easily rebound from damage.
Indeed, as commercial fisheries increasingly turn their attentions to the deep
sea, the risk <strong>of</strong> causing severe damage to populations <strong>of</strong> fish and other marine
life that frequently live on the fringes <strong>of</strong> existence, is dangerously high, in
the cold and dark. For example, Harrison’s dogfish, a species endemic to the
deep waters <strong>of</strong>f Australia, declined by 99 percent over 20 years from 1976 as
a result <strong>of</strong> trawl fishing and is now regarded as critically endangered. Orange
roughy, a large fish that lives near seamounts, grows slowly, can live 100 years
and has a very low natural mortality rate, has in recent years been subject
to trawl fisheries that have seen catches rise and then plummet <strong>of</strong>f Chile,
Namibia, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere, <strong>of</strong>ten after only a decade
or so <strong>of</strong> fishing.63 As with cold-water corals, the very slow reproduction
<strong>One</strong> <strong>Ocean</strong>, <strong>Many</strong> WOrlds Of life
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