Why it matters
The bottom line
19th January 2008
You may not think that we would be able to cause havoc at the bottom of the ocean - but we are doing it this very minute
A squid discarded as bycatch from a Spanish bottom trawler. Photo Credit: Greenpeace
Campaigns to protect endangered species are not just about saving cute animals. Science has long shown that the more biodiverse the world is, the more resilient to extinction all species are and the healthier the entire planet is. So the modern extinction epidemic is arguably the most dangerous of all environmental disasters. Now, a study reported in the journal Current Biology has shown that areas of ocean floor with fewer species do not function as well in key ecological processes, such as the breakdown of dead matter and the recycling of nutrients in the food chain.
You may not think that we would be able to cause havoc at the bottom of the ocean, but we are doing it this very minute. As fish stocks have collapsed, we have started to trawl deeper for seafood. Ships drag huge weighted nets along the bottom of the ocean for 30 kilometres at a time to haul up a catch, bulldozing over corals that take thousands of years to grow and wiping out species of worms, the recyclers that support all life in the sea.
Canada is opposed to a moratorium on bottom trawling in international waters (despite the support of countries such as Australia, Brazil and Britain). And our domestic legislation is inadequate, says Scott Wallace of the David Suzuki Foundation. “The U.S. is miles ahead of us in protecting their own deep-water habitats from bottom trawling.”
Published in The Green Report in The Globe and Mail
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