Welcome to the TBT Coalition’s July newsletter.
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This month, we’ve maintained the momentum of the coalition’s successful side event at the UN Ocean Conference. Following Thailand’s announcement to phase out bottom trawling, the Environmental Justice Foundation - a founding member of the TBT Coalition - has been working with the Thai government to ensure the new policy is effectively and equitably implemented.
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Meanwhile, coalition members in Honduras and Scotland made progress in their campaigns to expand, establish and strengthen inshore exclusion zones for small-scale fishers in which bottom trawling is prohibited.
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In the EU, years of collective campaigning by low-impact fishing associations and environmental groups resulted in the EU Parliament passing a ban on fly shooting - a highly efficient but destructive form of mobile bottom fishing - in part of the English Channel.
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These campaigns represent part of the growing global movement to safeguard coastal fisheries and ecosystems by tackling bottom trawling in coastal waters.
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We’ll continue to engage with, amplify and support these campaigns and members' work throughout August. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to [email protected] if the coalition can support your efforts to #TransformTrawling.
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Catch from a shrimp trawler fishing in the Gulf of Califonia. A large proportion will be discarded as bycatch. Can you spot the seahorse? This is one of the new images contributed to the media asset bank. © Sarah Foster / Project Seahorse
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CAMPAIGN UPDATES
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Establishing, expanding and strengthening IEZs
Are you aware of groups working to establish, expand and strengthen inshore exclusion zones (IEZs) for small-scale fishers in which bottom trawling is prohibited? If so, we want to meet them! Please get in touch with [email protected]
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Fishers process their catch of mackerel (mahaloky) in Northwest Madagascar. The government banned shrimp trawlers from fishing within two nautical miles of the shore in 2021. © Leah Glass / Blue Ventures
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Rare
After two years of extensive consultation with the local government, the communities successfully secured over 145,000 hectares of coastal seas for the exclusive use of low-impact, traditional fishers. The announcement has sparked a national movement to safeguard coastal fisheries; communities in five other municipalities are now developing proposals for exclusive fishing zones in which industrial fishing is prohibited.
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The community of Quinitio in the Department of Colón celebrate the 12 nautical mile artisanal fishing zone. © Diana Vasquez / Rare
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Our Seas
On the other side of the world, the Our Seas coalition, which represents over 130 organisations and is a founding member of the TBT Coalition, is continuing its fight for the reinstatement of a three-nautical mile inshore limit on bottom trawling and dredging in Scotland.
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This month, Our Seas member the Scottish Creel Fisherman’s Federation (SCFF) submitted a petition urging the Scottish Government to reinstate the inshore limit to protect low-impact fisheries and ecosystems. The petition is one of a number of strategies the SCFF and Our Seas are using to encourage the Scottish Government to push vessels using destructive methods further offshore, giving low-impact fishers and coastal ecosystem space to breathe.
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You can support the SCFF and Our Seas’ campaign by joining the movement or signing the petition.
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Bally Philip, Chair of the Scottish Creel Fisherman's Federation, spoke at the coalition's side event at COP26 in Glasgow last year. © Leah Glass / Blue Ventures
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COALITION UPDATES
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New media assets
Coalition members Film the Trawlers and Project Seahorse have donated new images and videos to the coalition’s media asset bank. Their contributions include shocking images of bycatch landed by shrimping vessels in the Gulf of California and supertrawlers fishing over the Puysegur Bank in Aotearoa New Zealand, which is home to a wide diversity of fragile marine life. You can request access to the content using the form on the coalition’s website.
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Do you have images or videos of bottom trawling and dredging activities? If so, please get in touch with [email protected]! The asset bank is steadily growing into a valuable open and free resource for campaigns, news stories and educators.
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Bycatch from a shrimp trawler fishing in the Gulf of California is pushed back into the sea, much of it dead or dying. © Sarah Foster / Project Seahorse
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New members
Three new members from Turkey, Nigeria and Tanzania joined the coalition in July, bringing us to 55 members across 28 countries.
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Environmental Management and Economic Development Organization (EMEDO) is a Tanzania-based non-profit organisation that focuses on enhancing the capacities of communities to get organised, have their voices heard, rights recognised and respected and influence local, national and international policies that affect their rights of access, use and control of natural resources for improved livelihoods.
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Akdeniz Koruma Derneği (AKD) is an NGO operating across the Turkish Mediterranean. It supports the designation and management of MPA management for the observation of marine biodiversity and the long-term sustainability of small-scale fisheries.
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The Pan African Vision for the Environment (PAVE) is a Lagos-based non-profit, non-political, non-governmental organisation established with the aim of promoting sustainable development through research, documentation, policy dialogues, workshops, advocacy and consultancy services. PAVE is developing a fisheries programme to address the impacts of industrial fishing on coastal communities.
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BOTTOM TRAWLING NEWS
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Asia and Asia-Pacific
Thailand announced a moratorium on new licences for vessels that engage in one of the most destructive fishing practices on 1 July. The country revealed that it will permanently ban new licences for bottom trawlers at the TBT Coalition’s event at the UN Ocean Conference.
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After Tamil Nadu’s annual fishing ban ended mid-June, Indian trawlers are back near Sri Lanka’s northern coast, “crushing” fishermen’s livelihoods already under enormous strain during the island’s economic crisis, according to northern Sri Lankan fisher leaders.
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Greenpeace activists in New Zealand are blocking a bottom trawler from leaving Port Nelson in opposition to continued bottom trawling on seamounts.
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The fierce debate over bottom trawling in New Zealand waters is set to go all the way to the United Nations headquarters in New York this week.
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Greenpeace activists in Aotearoa New Zealand block a bottom trawler from leaving Port Nelson in opposition to continued bottom trawling on seamounts. © Greenpeace / Jason Blair
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Africa
To restore Ghana’s marine resources, fishermen at Elmina in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem (KEEA) Municipality have appealed to the government to drop boulders into the sea to prevent industrial trawlers from depleting the fish stock.
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The two West African countries are embarking on a project to map Liberia's fisheries resources. But almost two years of incessant bottom trawling by a handful of Spanish-owned, Senegalese-flagged vessels operating under peculiar licences means it may be too late for the country's valuable deep-water shrimp fishery, CFFA reports.
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Fishers in Liberia land their catch of grouper and cavalla. Small-scale fishers had to compete with bottom trawlers before the government introduced a six nautical mile exclusion zone. The government recently granted licenses to Senegalese-flagged shrimp trawlers to fish within the zone. © Tom Collinson
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Americas
American Fisheries scientists Ray Hilborn presents a counter-argument to calls to restrict bottom trawling. He concludes by stating that fleets should be incentivised to reduce bycatch, reduce fuel use, minimise benthic impacts, and protect sensitive habitats. We believe that each of these goals can be achieved more effectively and equitably by restricting bottom trawling appropriately, including expanding, establishing and strengthening inshore exclusion zones in which the practice is prohibited. One of the articles he draws on has been rebutted in Mongabay.
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Assorted marine life, including juvenile fish and squid, caught by a bottom trawler in the Gulf of Thailand. In South East Asia's 'trash fish' fisheries, which Hilborn refers to in the article, even juvenile and inedible fish are retained and sold for animal and fish feed. © Athit Perawongmetha / Greenpeace
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Europe
The destructive fishing practice destroys underwater ecosystems, kills marine life and kicks up soils needed to store carbon dioxide.
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Campaigners hail the step towards ending the practice in French territorial waters that has had a ‘devastating’ effect on local fishers.
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Despite several setbacks, Scottish static-gear interests and conservation groups took another step last week in their ongoing campaign to limit the use of mobile gears on the west coast.
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By allowing destructive dredging and bottom-trawling, ministers are undermining wider efforts to protect the oceans
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Five potential marine sites where fishing and dredging will be banned are under consideration in a new consultation, with DEFRA setting out plans to have some formally designated within the next year.
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A new paper in the journal Scientific Data provides further evidence that bottom trawling is far more fuel-intensive than other fishing methods. The worst offenders in the study - otter trawlers fishing off Sicily - use 11.4 litres of fuel to catch 1kg of fish and shrimp.
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Divers in Scotland find furrows in the seabed where a dredge has recently passed. Bottom trawlers and dredgers in Scotland are legally allowed to fish within metres of the shore. © Howard Wood / COAST
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WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
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Are there bottom trawling news or events you would like us to amplify via this newsletter or our social media channels? Please contact [email protected].
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