About 1 100 marine scientists worldwide called on the United Nations to ban the use of deep-sea trawling nets, according to reports on Monday.
They are destroying irreplaceably coral fields and sponges — ”like bulldozers”, according to the appeal.
Fishing trawlers use nets with steel weights or heavy rollers to find fish on the bottom of the ocean causing untold damage at depths of 2km to 3km.
Corals need centuries to regenerate owing to the cold temperatures at such depths, the marine scientists said on Sunday at a congress of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.
Marine scientists would like the gear currently in use to be replaced by anchored longlines several hundred metres in length, which float above the reefs.
The only disadvantage is that they could snag corals as they are recovered, but researchers say this would be preferable to the current method. — Sapa-DP