Bottom trawling has been the hot-button issue in fisheries over the past couple of years. Calls to ban bottom trawling are louder than I can ever remember and public perception is extremely negative, despite much improvement in bottom trawling gear and sustainability over the past few decades.
Measuring the impacts of bottom trawling has been a main research focus for me over the past decade and I’ve been frustrated that messaging out of eNGOs has not followed the science.
This past March, I co-hosted a weekend workshop before the 9th World Fisheries Congress to get a group together to talk about the future of bottom trawling. One take away was the need for better communication and explanation so journalists and the public can understand the science of bottom trawling, what makes a bottom trawl fishery sustainable, and the context of bottom trawling in the global food system.
We hope the article below can begin to address those needs. We hope that, in whatever line of work you are in, if you ever get questions (or hatemail) about bottom trawling you can send this article out as a, “here, read this.”
Bottom trawling sustainability 101
All the best,
Ray
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