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Though the government should be working on making networks of marine reserves to protect marine life it goes and gives a head ho to Bottom trawling. A process that is so expensive that it can not become commercially viable without government subsidies.

World Conservation Union (IUCN) and other environmental groups concluded that bottom-trawling was

...highly destructive to the biodiversity associated with seamounts and deep-sea coral ecosystems and... likely to pose significant risks to this biodiversity, including the risk of species extinction.

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Research shows that bottom-trawling is responsible for some deep-sea reefs losing more than 95% of their coral. Bottom-trawlers use weighted nets to drag along the ocean floor. The nets are designed to catch fish, but they rip out corals and other marine organisms. It is like wiping out an entire forest, what remains is an ecological desert. So with it we loose the habitat of fish and species that might have a cure to the world’s diseases.

It is also a very cruel practice in which due to Decompression the fish suffer. Their swimbladders ruptures, their eyes pops out, and their esophagi and stomachs out pushed through their mouths.

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Bryce Beukers-Stewart, fisheries policy officer with the Marine Conservation Society said:

We had been hoping the amazing creatures and habitats of the deep sea would get an early Christmas present this week.But once again, short-term political and economic interests have over-ridden common sense.

Eleven nations have bottom-trawling fleets, Spain’s is the biggest. The government has supported bottom trawling with a lame injunction at preservation- to adopt unilateral “precautionary measures” to ensure bottom-trawlers do not cause significant damage to marine ecosystems. The policy has enough loopholes for bottom-trawlers to exploit the nations.Who knows how many fish will be left in the oceans by the middle of the century.

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Via: BBC