‘Misinformation’ or ‘uncomfortable truths’? What both sides say about bottom trawling
In an election year, the controversial fishing practice of bottom trawling has resurfaced as an issue. Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says “misinformation” is fuelling a growing campaign to ban it; others say its destructive effects are clear. Katy Jones hears both sides.
Federation President Doug Saunders-Loder was one of the voices who sat down with reporter Katy Jones to present the fishing side of the story. A short excerpt from her deep-dive is below.
Rex Chapman, skipper of the Tokatu, Sealord’s largest fishing vessel, sits at the command deck of the deep-sea trawler as it underwent maintenance at the company’s Port Nelson base.
The 4700 tonne boat may have been getting some TLC, but its crew felt under attack, said Chapman, a fisherman of 40 years’ experience.
He said seeing advertisements on social media and television calling for a ban on the controversial practice of bottom trawling were difficult viewing for his crew.
“You hear ... you’re out there bulldozing and destroying the seabed,” he says. “For people who live and work on the sea, we live there six months of the year, it’s our livelihood. Why would we go out there and destroy the seabed?”
But Greenpeace Aotearoa’s adverts told a different story, urging a ban on the “brutal” practice, and claiming the weighted nets scraped the seabed bare.
Ancient coral forests and delicate ecosystems were being destroyed, threatening the extinction of entire species, while the nets scooped up everything in their path, killing animals like dolphins, the adverts said.
Generational fishers’ mental health was suffering from "the constant negative rhetoric” about the industry, said Doug Saunders-Loder, president of the New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen.
Hundreds of private owner-operators fished commercially inshore (in the country’s territorial sea within 12 nautical miles (22.2 km) from the coast) contributing to an industry that employed over 1000 people in Nelson alone, he said.
“These people have worked their entire lives to maintain a happy, sustainable environment,” said Saunders-Loder, fisheries manager at Motueka-based Talley’s, which provided quota to nearly 80 independent inshore vessels in the South Island.
