19 April 2018
The US has banned bottom trawling along most of its west coast
19 April 2018
BLOOM praises the decision of the Pacific Fishery Management Council to protect sensitive marine ecosystems in the US: on 9 April, bottom trawling was banned in an area covering more than 40 000 km2 off the southern coast of the United States, following a campaign by Oceana and partners in collaboration with fishers.
The Council also prohibited any bottom-contact fishing gear (trawls but also traps and longlines) in an area the size of Norway (around 320 000 km2) and deeper than 3 500m, which hosts fragile deep-sea sponges and corals as well as slow-maturing and long-lived fish species.
Together with the already existing protected areas in the region, it is now almost 90% of the US West Coast’s Exclusive Economic Zone that is off limit to bottom trawling.