Environment     

Antarctic expert calls for halt to Ross Sea fishing

Xinhua, September 18, 2012

• The Ross Sea. [File photo]

  A leading New Zealand expert on the Antarctic Tuesday called for Antarctic Treaty nations to stop illegal and unregulated fishing in the Ross Sea.
  
  

  University of Canterbury Professor Bryan Storey, reacting to comments by Philippa Ross, a descendent of the man who discovered the Ross Sea in 1841, said more needed to be known about the lifecycle of the Antarctic toothfish, which was fished in the Ross Sea.

  "We need more data and more research to establish if the fishery is sustainable," Storey said in a statement.

  "In the meantime, many people would say, let's stop fishing and get on with the research but in reality this never seems to happen. The biggest problem with making the Ross Sea a marine protected area is to control illegal and unregulated fishing," he said.

  "Before setting up a marine protected area, we need to have a viable protection/policing system in place first to stop illegal and unregulated fishing. I am not aware that this system is in place yet."

  Philippa Ross, the great-great-great-granddaughter of British naval officer and polar explorer James Clark Ross, told the New Zealand Herald newspaper Tuesday that the New Zealand government was a disgrace in its failure to protect one of the last intact marine ecosystems in the world.

   

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