October 30, 2005
Forests of the Deep Sea
Driving between Haast and Charleston takes some time. But time is different here its not measured in seconds and minutes, because the road winds through ancient forest. Rimu, kahikatea, miro protected in a world heritage area.
Theyre around the same age as the coral forests in the deep sea but often younger.
Many corals grow for hundreds of years, some a few thousand though some coral complexes have been found to be 10,000 years old aroundNew Zealand.
It is completely unacceptable to clearfell ancient native forest on the land, so why do we tolerate this kind of stupidity in the sea?
As tui and kereru fly though native forest on the land, ornage roughy swim though the ancient coral forests of the sea.
To catch birds, you wouldnt clearfell a forest, but thats exactly what happens in the hunt for orange roughy, oreos and other deep sea species.
On the streets, some fishermen recall a lot of coral coming up when they bottom trawl a seamount or deep sea hill for the first time.
Guys who began their time at sea more recently have seen broken off little bits or no corals. Its likely that this is because so many coral forests were destroyed in the 80s and 90s. From that time, there are reports 3-4 tonne nets full of black and red corals coming up.
In New Zealand, the fishing industry has fought hard to keep observers off fishing boats. 5-10% of vessels fishing the deep sea around New Zealand have now observers on them this is an all time historic high.
However, during the years 1997 and 1998 observers were on board bottom trawlers as they hunted orange roughy on the Tasman Rise (an area of international waters between New Zealand and Australia). In a rare insight, observers documented 4,000 tonnes of orange roughy being caught and to get them, 10,000 tonnes of ancient corals. We know little about what else came up with the deep sea habitat.
But of course, as each area is depleted, the hunt for orange roughy and new trawling grounds continues. And with it comes coral and a myriad of creatures from the unknown worlds of the deep sea as we saw in international waters near Norfolk Island in June.
We arrived in Westport in the knowledge that the forests were eventually protected when people voiced enough concern. We'll be looking foward when the threatened life of the deep sea is afforded the same respect.
