Aotearoa accused of failing to adequately protect seamounts in international waters amid high-level United Nations fisheries meeting – Newshub

Amid a high-level UN fisheries meeting in New York, there are accusations that New Zealand is failing to adequately protect seamounts in international waters from bottom trawlers.

Seamounts are underwater biodiversity hotspots and the meeting in New York will help frame changes to high seas bottom trawling in the future.

A vast array of incredibly unusual corals, sponges and creatures congregate on seamounts, often referred to as underwater mountains. Seamounts emerge from the muddy seafloor and are a magnet for biodiversity.

And almost always, new species are found when exploring them.

"We could find up to 10 percent of our biodiversity is comprised of either new species which haven't been seen before or they're new records for that location," said NIWA principal fisheries scientist Dr Malcolm Clark.

Dr Clark surveyed over 150 seamounts. He's been doing it since the late 80s and said damage to seamounts from bottom trawling is obvious and long-lasting.

"Work done on features inside New Zealand indicate that some of the deep sea corals will take decades, potentially even centuries, to recover to what they were before being affected by fishing."

The Louisville Seamount Chain, off the east coast of New Zealand, is another area he explored. The chain is made up of 60 features, spanning hundreds of kilometres, in the South Pacific Ocean. A New Zealand vessel got permission to trawl there last year and no other country's fished there since 2019.

Greenpeace marine ecologist Kat Goddard, who's in New York for the United Nations fisheries workshop, said that's not good enough.

"If protecting deep-sea biodiversity was a priority for the New Zealand Government then it would stop issuing bottom trawl permits to those vessels fishing in the South Pacific."

The UN previously called on states to "take immediate action to protect vulnerable marine ecosystems, including seamounts, hydrothermal vents and corals, from fishing practices with significant adverse impacts".

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Aotearoa accused of failing to adequately protect seamounts in international waters amid high-level United Nations fisheries meeting - Newshub