Kia ora and thank you for signing our petition to help protect ancient coral forests from bottom trawling! Since you signed, we have a new government and an even bigger challenge ahead.
We urgently need your help to share this new orange roughy video and get more signatures on this petition to stop bottom trawling seamounts.
Why is it urgent?
New Zealand’s Minister of Oceans and Fisheries, Shane Jones has just announced a new orange roughy catch limit. The new catch limit is too high for the population to recover and doesn’t stop bottom trawling on seamounts.
The orange roughy, a deep-sea fish, is in deep trouble. This species, which can live for more than 200 years, is being hammered by destructive bottom trawling on seamounts. NZ is the last country bottom trawling on seamounts in the South Pacific high seas, and trawlers are smashing up corals and other deep-sea life to get orange roughy off seamounts.
Please share our video to shine a light on how bottom trawling destroys seamounts, home to orange roughy and ancient corals, and encourage people to sign the petition.
What can you do?
🎥 First, Watch and Share this Video: https://youtu.be/jSrO_ZHt8F0
✏️ Share this Petition to Save Deep Sea Life
https://www.change.org/p/nz-government-stop-the-fishing-industry-destroying-ancient-coral-forests
What does this matter?
Seamounts are home to ancient creatures like corals and sponges. These can be hundreds or even thousands of years old.
Orange roughy are highly vulnerable to overfishing – they can live for more than 200 years and their populations don’t reach full breeding maturity until around 70 years.
A recent government report revealed that bottom trawling is responsible for 99% of reported coral bycatch, and the orange roughy fishery causes the most destruction.
We URGENTLY need the New Zealand government to:
- Close all seamounts to bottom trawling.
- Significantly reduce the catch limits for orange roughy.
- Support global conservation measures to protect corals and other ocean life.
Thank you for helping our deep-sea ecosystems 💙 from all our Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
Together, we can ensure our ocean life has the protection it needs. 🌎