EU Wants To Get Tough On Deep-water Trawlers

Deep-water trawlers that fly a European Union country flag and wish to use huge nets and dredging to scoop up fish from sea beds outside EU waters may soon face far tighter rules that aim to protect the environment. As species like cod and hake become depleted in the European Union by overfishing, deep-water species such as forkbeard, orange roughy and black scabbardfish are an attractive catch as trawlers move to new fishing grounds. Environmental groups say fishing techniques such as bottom trawling and towed dredging destroy unique and fragile deep-sea life - especially in areas like coral reefs and seamounts - to catch what amounts to a small number of fish. Coral reefs are one of the oldest types of living systems on the planet A bottom trawl is a cone-shaped net that is towed by one or two boats across the sea floor, its pointed end retaining all the fish that are scooped up. It can cause damage to extremely slow growing ecosystems, particularly coral reefs, and also depletes other marine life that is captured by the nets. On Wednesday, EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg proposed stricter rules to control bottom trawling in an attempt to regulate EU-flagged vessels when they moved onto the high seas...