- Joined
- Jan 22, 2004
- Messages
- 279
myopsida said:It is massive - the little guys and the environmentalists have been conned and outwitted - I agree, a great start, but it will make it impossible to get any additional protected areas in coastal and offshore reefs in trawlable depths which are at greatest risk!
My first reaction exactly (probably formulated more clearly ). Saw the snippet on the news yesterday after a few episodes of Black Books (so that could be where the grumpiness and cyniscism come from)... showed a different map tho.
It's worth downloading the ppt presentation, there's a lot of nitty-gritty info and heaps of numbers (yay!). Of special interest is the blow-by-blow description of each area to be protected, and the rationale behind the decision. IIRC the news cast mentionned the fact that they are trying to protect untrawled areas. That's great, however it doesn't stop the current problems of permanent damage and stock depletion in NZ waters. I suppose in the long run, it creates a finite limit on the area that can ever be trawled... but everything is linked, food trickles down to the deep, fish and other critters migrate up and down the water column and in and out areas (spawning/feeding)....
As a good little paranoid conspiracy-theorist, i can't help but wonder why the industry, so firmly entrenched for years, has suddenly agreed (have they?) to such drastic closures. Have they realised that the expense of fishing those areas was too great? That the technology to do so wasn't coming fast enough? That it would distract their opponents from the areas they are fishing right now or intend to later? That it's all going down the drain real fast and they better buy themselves a conscience to prepare for reconversion?
... i don't think i'll be sleeping tonight...
TPTH