Source: Stuff New Zealand
Author: Andrea Vance
The Government has pulled out of plans to restrict deep sea trawling that would have protected orange roughy.
The Government pulled plans to put major restrictions on deep sea trawling after the fishing industry threatened legal action.
Officials and scientists from New Zealand and Australia had been working on the joint proposal since 2012 and it was finally due to go in front of an inter-governmental body in Peru in late January.
It was designed to protect the stocks of orange roughy in the high seas and prevent the destruction of delicate seabed life like coral and sponges.
But just weeks before the meeting, the High Seas Fisheries lobby group – which includes Talleys and Sealord – wrote to the Government threatening legal action.
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