Picture worth 1000 Words Dept: Chinese Trawlers
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 05.11.07
Mike just did a picture of Chinese water yesterday, and now we see this- trawlers vacuuming the bottom of the ocean off the mouth of the Yangtse. We covered shrimp production earlier: ""one of the most destructive means by which humans produce food." Now we see these satellite images that fisheries scientist Daniel Pauly says: “What was not known before was that you could see these mud trails from space. I was flabbergasted by it.” and “They lift up huge quantities of mud. Basically the implications are terrifying,” said Mr. Pauly. “Trawling is destroying bottom habitat.” He continues: “The one from China blew everyone's mind,” said Mr. Pauly, who has shared it with his colleagues around the world. “This really shows the impact of trolling is like agriculture on land. There is no chance for wild animals to live there. “All the [ocean] shelves on Earth are being trawled. The damage being done is enormous." ::Globe and Mail and ::Telegraph
Wow
I'll accept that trawling causes horrible environmental damage, and that all these boats illustrate how vulnerable the shelves are, but this is at the mouth of the Yangtze River, where much of Asia's dirt flows to see. It's one of the most powerful sediment-carriers on earth, though the Three Gorges Dam is changing how much gets to the sea.
How much of this mud is just unsettled mud from the river?
even still with trawling on such a scale how do they expect the area to maintain populations of life when it looks like they are leveling the place constantly.
Easter Island X 10+6