Thanks to Rob Hutchins and Oceanographic Online for the Headline.
Italy and Spain have blocked a proposal to extend the ban on deep-sea trawling, the proposal planned to reduce the depth of trawling from 1000m to 800m. The Republic of Turkey put forward the proposal , but Italy and Spain’s actions have meant that all they can do is propose it again next year.
It is not thought that the proposal to reduce the depth would have an impact on the fish trawling income , as there are a limited number of large industrial trawlers who could dredge to that depth.
However, the benefits to the deep-sea ecosystem and it’s role in absorbing temperature changes in the surrounding sea is thought to be potentially beneficial to the environment in the Mediterranean.
As such the fact that the proposal has been blocked has upset a lot of the Countries concerned about the ocean environment and also the EU’s ability to prioritise Ocean conservation in practice.
Namaste and Thank You for Reading.🙏
