Beyond detailing the damaging impacts of unregulated and indiscriminate fishing practices the report also presents a map showing which areas of the ocean are most vital to protect. These grim figures, published this week in the journal Nature, are part of a sweeping global assessment of how protecting the marine environment could benefit biodiversity and humanity while combating climate change. In total, the study also finds bottom trawlers plough across 1.9 million square miles of the seafloor every year. According to the Times, preliminary data suggest that a “large proportion” does.Ĭhina, Russia, Italy, the U.K., Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Croatia and Spain are the ten countries responsible for the most carbon released by bottom trawling, according to the study. Some portion of this released carbon may even enter the atmosphere, though researchers are still working out just how much. When this stored carbon dissolves into the oceans it contributes to ocean acidification and reduces the ocean’s already taxed ability to pull carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The marine sediments that bottom trawlers stir up like underwater rototillers are the largest storehouse of carbon on the planet, reports Karen McVeigh for the Guardian. Now, a new study finds that when bottom trawlers churn up the seafloor they release a gigaton of carbon dioxide into the world’s oceans every year-a massive total equal to the entire aviation industry’s annual emissions, reports Catrin Einhorn for the New York Times. Beyond the untargeted marine life or bycatch that ends up caught in the nets, the practice also alters the sea bed’s structure, chemistry and ecology in ways that may take decades or centuries to heal. In pursuit of their targeted catch, these indiscriminate nets destroy corals, sea sponges and anything else in their path, leaving scoured tracts and stirred up sediment in their wake. Bottom trawlers collect fish and shrimp from the world’s oceans by dragging massive, weighted nets across the seafloor.
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