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Bottom trawling linked to high greenhouse gas emissions in MPA-supporting study

The following is an excerpt from an article published by the Global Aquaculture Advocate: 

A recent paper claims that marine protected areas are the solution to curbing the environmental impacts of bottom trawling. Others say it’s not that simple.

Seafood has frequently been dubbed as one of the most climate-friendly foods on the planet. A recent peer-reviewed study published in Nature challenges this claim, arguing that bottom trawling – in which a fishing vessel pulls or drags a fishing net across the ocean floor – may be releasing more carbon emissions than the aviation industry. The authors are now calling for more marine protected areas, or MPAs, that exclude bottom trawling to curb emissions from commercial fishing.

“We were surprised to find that trawling had such large impacts on seabed carbon storage,” Dr. Trisha Atwood, one of the paper’s authors and associate professor in the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University, told the Advocate.

The authors, a team of climate experts, marine biologists and economists, argue that closing off major areas of the ocean to bottom trawling by introducing MPAs with commercial fishing bans can help to preserve biodiversity and increase the productivity of commercial fisheries.

“The impacts of trawling on seafloor carbon storage could be reduced by protecting carbon hotspots and moving trawling to lower-impact areas,” said Atwood. “Our study provides a plan, not just for where we can protect the most carbon [from release], but also for how we can help enhance food security and protect biodiversity.”

Some fishermen feel they have limited options and that marine protected areas limit them further. Photo courtesy of the Clyde Fishermen’s Association.

The authors identified priority protection areas by analyzing areas of the ocean most impacted by human activity that could be reduced through the creation of MPAs. They then produced a map identifying areas of the global ocean that would benefit most from protection.

The paper’s findings have been critiqued by other scientists, including Dr. Ray Hilborn, a University of Washington Professor of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, and Dr. Jan Geert Hiddink, a professor in the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University in Wales.

“The paper seems to rely on a lot of assumptions that are poorly underpinned,” Hiddink explained, highlighting several major concerns, one being the authors’ assumption that all bottom-trawling fisheries create the same amount of emissions. “In some places you get very big carbon emissions from bottom trawling and in others you get less.”

Hiddink said that there is currently not enough knowledge to create a global map like the one included in this paper to confidently determine where reducing trawling effort would also reduce emissions. Hiddink also concluded that not only is the map likely inaccurate but the solution to create more MPAs to reduce emissions is also flawed: “Their model assumes trawling just stops with MPAs, but in reality, it just moves elsewhere.”

MPAs have been a widely debated topic, though momentum has been growing in recent years due to many global milestones and announcements, including President Joe Biden’s recent commitment to protect 30 percent of the oceans by 2030. Currently, 26 percent of the country’s oceans are protected by MPAs.(continues...)

Author: Emily De Sousa/ Global Aquaculture Advocate | Read the full article by clicking de link here

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