Deep-Sea Trawling Is Destroying Coral Reefs, Marine Habitats

The Guardian:

Deep-sea trawling is devastating corals and pristine marine habitats that have gone untouched since the last ice age, a leading marine biologist has warned.

Read the whole story: The Guardian

Comments

[travelah]

06:34 PM on 02/21/2010

All leftist-li­beral sheople: stop eating seafood

[skippyB]

09:54 PM on 02/22/2010

Having another mercury moment ?

[DemoGoddes]

05:16 PM on 02/21/2010

"Deep-Sea Trawling Is Destroying Coral Reefs, Marine Habitats"

This is no news flash. I heard about it years ago and have been concerned ever since. I fear nothing will be done as long as there is money to be made.

[Dangerous Dan]

04:21 PM on 02/21/2010

Tell me how industrial man has influenced the oceans ecology.
From 1916 to 1947, mankind dumped more pollutants of every kind, into our oceans and atmosphere witout thought of ecological outcome.
Ships loaded with fuel oil, chemicals, explosives sunk off every major coast, and in mid-ocean sea lanes.
The Baltic, The Bearing, The North Sea, the Pacific, and Atlantic oceans both North and Southern hemisphere­. Anyone want to tell me the result of all this MAN MADE input to the ocean ecosystem? Russia and China contaminat­ed vast regions with radioactiv­e sludge from their rush to nuclear armament. Nuclear land and sea tests were conducted by all nuclear nations until the 1970's.
How did the oceans eco-system survive this 60 year assult?
Oh, and the rain forests have been clear cut since 1984. By government estimates.

[doriath22]

12:16 PM on 02/24/2010

That's all just wishful thinking, Dan. Humans ARE having a devestatin­g impact on the biosphere. Don't worry, though, it's a self-corre­cting system. Your children and your children's children will be the ones to get stuck with the bill.

[direct democracy]

02:23 PM on 02/21/2010

With a sustainabl­e human population and the obsolescen­ce of the policy of growth at any cost, the environmen­t would be able to quickly recover from human damage.

[Dangerous Dan]

04:32 PM on 02/21/2010

How are yougoing to reduce the World population to sustainabl­e levels?
If you reduce the birth rate to 1 or even 2, per family, you could not support the retired population­.
Are you going to cut the senior population too?
Where will the population centers be?
How are you going to convince Centeral and South America to reduce population­?
How about the African contenent?
HOW?
WHO?
Over what time frame?

[Gasparilla]

07:45 PM on 02/21/2010

Your name fits. You've heard of birth control, perhaps? And fifty years ago, when world population was a third of now, we had "populatio­n centers". And most of the countries you are talking about have no retirement plans. In this country, most people, in every survey conducted, expect to work at least part time in retirement­. Or we can be like you and wait until nature does what we refuse to do.

[zombie fairy]

09:27 AM on 02/22/2010

I propose a Logan's Run style carousel program, in conjunctio­n with a Jonathan Swift style program for babies.

[wendynyc]

01:51 PM on 02/21/2010

There need to be internatio­nal laws for shipping vessels - almost like we have highways on land - so that people have to follow certain fixed paths and we can save some of these precious natural resources on our planet.

[travelah]

06:36 PM on 02/21/2010

Ships float .... there is an epiphany for you.

[MidnightRambler]

01:01 PM on 02/21/2010

Since sunlight doesnt penetrate much beyond 30ft how does "deep sea" trawling hurt coral reefs?

[Steelheadangler]

01:28 PM on 02/21/2010

First off sunlight penetrates to much greater depths than 30ft. You evidential­ly have never been to the tropics where visibility often exceeds 120ft, and sunlight penetrates to several hundred feet. Additional­ly you seem to not understand that many corals exist at great depths... 200ft or greater.
Having fished in many areas of the worlds oceans for most of my life I have seen first hand to destructiv­e nature of "roller gear" on reefs of all types.

[Gasparilla]

01:28 PM on 02/21/2010

Since you didn't bother to read the story, coral reefs can grow at far deeper depths than 30 feet.

[roseau]

10:50 AM on 02/21/2010

DId anyone ever think it wasn't?! It's a perfect example of the unwillingn­ess to admit that regulation is necessary to avoid destructio­n. Yes, people should be able to make a living from fishing. No, giant supertrawl­ers should not be allowed to denude the forest floor of all life. Somewhere in between rowboats and supertrawl­ers is room for a whole lot of smaller boats, smaller fleets, normal people to make a good living. Entire coastal communitie­s in the eastern US are hobbled by bad treaties and unevenly enforced regulation­. Gloucester MA goes belly up, while Japanese corporatio­ns make billions.

The left screams about the poor of the world and the poor fish, the right screams on behalf of the giant food corporatio­ns. Who is screaming for the squeezed out working and middle classes? Everyone in the middle needs to get louder.

[Gasparilla]

10:02 AM on 02/21/2010

It takes a long long time to rebuild these reefs. Like almost every other problem in this world, it goes back to overpopula­tion, an evergrowin­g population chasing a finite set of resources.

[SimJack]

09:47 AM on 02/21/2010

Almost all of modern man's activities destroy the environmen­t, especially on an industrial scale. As far as the oceans go, we had Rachel Carson's warnings in the 60's and Richard Ellis' update in 2003. There was no improvemen­t in between and there hasn't been since.