Bottom Trawling (SCOOP)

Why am I not surprised. Ah, Iceland. Such great use of their only on-land resource, geothermal power. Such horrid use of the World's oceans.
 
uh oh...

Steve O'Shea;79128 said:
WOW

.
New Zealand is taking a strong stance on bottom trawling in international waters, and will seek the support of other nations at regional meetings and at the United Nations General Assembly next month, the government announced today.

But Dr O.... wait... there's more... in the small print

Race on to find metal deposits
By MICHAEL FIELD - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 10 January 2007


"Heavily funded Australian explorers have ratcheted up the race for near legendary gold and copper deposits in the South Pacific Ocean, northeast of the North Island, but New Zealanders face being frozen out of any commercial deals in their own waters.

Insatiable Chinese demand for copper and for new technology are beginning to make the deposits economic.

The deposits are found on the Kermadec Arch - running from the Bay of Plenty to Tonga - which is rich in "black smoker" thermal vents containing an array of lucrative metals.

A London listed company, Neptune Minerals, says it has signed a deal to begin sampling operations on Brothers, a hydro-thermally active large undersea crater 400 kilometres northeast of White Island. It could begin mining as early as next year if deposits are proven.

Neptune's announcement was made just ahead of another by Vancouver-based Australian miners Nautilus Minerals, which said yesterday it had lodged 18 prospecting licence applications within Tonga's Exclusive Economic Zone and two special prospecting licences within Fiji's Exclusive Economic Zone, covering a combined area of 90,000 square kilometres.

Some of the Tongan applications are near Minerva Reefs, 1600km northeast of Auckland.

Neptune, listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange, said it had signed a letter of intent with Norway's Geo Subsea Group to begin its Kermadec exploration programme.

It would explore over the Brothers, in an area 1800 metres deep.

Neptune said that if the work, beginning next month, was successful, it would aim to have a commercial operation in place by next year."

Simple really - keep the trawlers out of the way of the mining operations
 
Interesting, especially given some talks I've seen at recent conferences. There seemed to be a lot of interest in New Zealand's offshore minerals. We're supposed to have an 'Oceans Policy' to cover this sort of stuff.

One question though, isn't 1800m deeper than the trawlers can currently go?
 
This is absolute lunacy!!! We get the area protected from fisheries impacts, and then some international sod-awful organisation comes along, soils our waters further and mines what we protected in the first instance!

Crew, we have a new enemy, a new role, and a new signature! Ban deep-sea mining!! There's a vent barnacle out there at the Brothers, Vulcanolepas osheai, and I'm not about to sit down and let them wipe me out!

M, have you heard anything of the industry BPA proposal; I thought the minister was to announce something in December 06 (having been away I've lost touch with developments).

Matt, they don't regularly trawl to 1800m but they can do so; it just depends how much wire they have on board and what mark they see on the sounder (possible fish); the Tangaroa has gone down > 2000m with trawl gear (most commercial boats wouldn't carry enough wire to go to this depth, and there's no fisheries resource down there that I'm aware of to warrant that expenditure for exploratory purposes).
 
Just to tidy up lose ends, yesterday the Minister announced the closure! Sure, it is drawing criticism, but not from me. It is not the sort of subject that you can debate in a radio interview, or try and get across to a reporter; it really does require a 'debate' style forum.

Anywho, here it is.:biggrin2:
 

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