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Block off the Ross Sea: Greens

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Wed, 11 Jan 2012 2:39p.m.

Part of the Ross Sea region of the Antarctic (AAP)

Part of the Ross Sea region of the Antarctic (AAP)

The Ross Sea should be closed off to fishing vessels after three serious boating disasters in just over a year, the Green Party says.

The party has joined calls from environmental group The Last Ocean to have most of the 960,000 square kilometres of sea near Antarctica transformed into a marine-protected area in the wake of the latest boating accident.

A Korean fishing vessel, the Jeong Woo 2, issued a mayday call from its position in the sea 3,700km southeast of New Zealand early on Wednesday after a fire ripped through its accommodation block.

Three sailors are missing presumed dead while another seven suffered moderate to severe burns in the disaster.

It comes just a month after the Russian fishing vessel Sparta, which carries 32 crew, hit ice in a similar position in the Ross Sea in mid December, rupturing the hull.

A year earlier, the Korean fishing boat No.1 Insung sunk in the same area, with a loss of 22 lives.

Green Party oceans spokesman Gareth Hughes said it was time to block the "dangerous and hostile piece of ocean" off to tooth fishers.

"This is clearly an extremely hostile environment that is being used by very old, single-hulled unsuitable fishing boats," Mr Hughes told NZ Newswire.

"The best thing we could do is close it off, make it marine-protected and stop the risk of these terrible accidents as well as protecting a precious bit of ocean."

A group of 500 international marine scientists have been campaigning for the move, but Mr Hughes said leaked documents indicate it will be vetoed by the New Zealand and US governments.

"That's disappointing," Mr Hughes said.

"Let's hope this latest accident will serve as a wake-up call to the government that we need to act."
NZN

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Comments

13 Jan 2012 06:41a.m.

atrout wrote:

@DGA Certainly the technology exists to detect any rogue Korean Vdub Beetles in the Ross Sea area and then what? Send a warship after them and fire a cannon shell through the VW's chainlocker? It's all very well to get fixated about shutting up areas of the world's oceans but you have to have good reasons to to so and then to have the means of effectively managing these areas. Come back when you have both, otherwise you lack any real credibility.

12 Jan 2012 08:52p.m.

DGA wrote:

Mr Atrout: the areas of the Ross Sea is 3.2% of the Southern Ocean (ocean south of the Polar Front); it's <1% of the World Ocean. Certainly, enterprising fishing captains can find fish elsewhere, wouldn't you think? And as for surveillance, modern satellites with imagery available to the public can see things smaller than a VW bug. Certainly, a fishing vessel is easily detected.

12 Jan 2012 07:29a.m.

a wrote:

@RobertM Good information... I'd be delighted to see the Southern fishery well protected from predatory fishing. You've shown the resources are there to provide patrols but when you've boarded a rust bucket either dead in the water from mechanical failures or loaded with the wrong fish, then what next? Escort them outside the Exclusion Zone or seize the ship? It's good to have the gear and assuming that agreement is there between the respective nations, then what? A strategy is needed that will actually work.

11 Jan 2012 11:42p.m.

RobertM wrote:

Well possibly not, atrout. There has long been a need for NZ to declare a 200 miles (320km) zone off the Ross Dependency coast and with Australia to have regular naval or coastguard patrols of the southern ocean. There is the urgent issue of predatory overfishing and well as the growing risk of maritime spills and sinking from insufficiently maintained or robust trawlers and mother ships. Closing the area off to fishing may be a bit drastic and restrictive of an established area used as an asian fish resource but takes and trawlers need to be patrolled and inspected down their by naval vessels. It is pretty much what HMS Otago, Wellington and even Canterbury are designed and three of the New Dutch OPVs of 32000 tons which are sort of patrol versions of a diesel Leander like Hull would be particulary useful to carry the new NH 90 and a 76mm gun and a few of the gattling type weapons many Japanese maratime police coastguard vessels carry. About six armed OPVs are really needed or duties from the Ross Sea to the Equator.

11 Jan 2012 03:44p.m.

Bruce wrote:

I can understand why the US would want to veto such a proposal but i can't see why the NZ Government would.... Oh, Thats right. silly me, We have a Looney Nat government!.. I wonder if its got anything to do with the 1959 Antarctic treaty that is to expire in 2048 and the discovery of the world's largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia under the Ross sea. I believe that would be why the US and the NZ Government would want to veto such a proposal.

11 Jan 2012 03:10p.m.

atrout wrote:

The Greens are getting a reputation for totally impractical proposals to close off large parts of the seas to commercial exploitation. Doesn't the Green caucus exercise some control over MP's public statements? And have they any concrete idea of how this closure could be achieved and how it could be policed and by who? Thought not, this is just another touchy feely outburst by Gareth Hughes.