Daniel Hutchinson From The Hutch

I always welcome suggestions on topics to write about. Unfortunately a lot of these come from my own family.

Usually these ideas are discarded for one reason or another – mainly for a lack of maturity.

However this week my mother told me I should look into bottom trawling.

‘That's very progressive of you Mum but what makes you think I'd be interested in that?'

Turns out bottom trawling is a fishing term and while it sounds funny because it has the word ‘bottom' in it, it is actually very serious – especially for the fish.

And Greenpeace.

And for the delegates at the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation's annual meeting this week. That's SPRFMO, or Sperfmo for ease of pronunciation.

Aye me hearties

There are 15 countries represented at this meeting in Wellington which essentially an inter-governmental fish conservation convention for the South Pacific. I've never been to one of these gatherings but I'm picturing 15 salty seamen sitting in the Ruby Rabbit Bar, glaring at each other and throwing rusty harpoons at a map on the wall.

Countries represented include China, the Russian Federation, the Republics of Korea, Peru, Ecuador and Cuba, the European Union, the US, Australia and the Kingdom of Denmark, in respect of the Faroe Islands.

In case you are wondering, the Faroe Islands is a group of 18 volcanic islands between Iceland and Norway in the North Atlantic. So naturally they would be represented.

There are notable absences from this group like Fiji, Tonga and Samoa but there are two South Pacific island nations thrown in the mix - the Republic of Vanuatu and the Cook Islands.

Anyway Greenpeace reckons New Zealand is the dodgiest player at this table because of our bent for bottom trawling.

For those curious about bottom trawling, it is a method of fishing that involves dragging a net across the ocean floor to catch large quantities of fish.

It can be quite damaging unless you do it on a sandy bottom.

New Zealand allows this practice in our waters, much to the chagrin of Greenpeace.

Greenpeace ocean campaigner Jessica Desmond says, based on pre-meeting submissions, she believes the New Zealand delegation will be arguing for more ‘destructive' bottom trawling.

In November 2020, Greenpeace and a coalition of environmental groups handed a 50,000 strong petition calling for bottom trawling to be banned on seamounts.

In their defence, Fisheries NZ's director of fisheries management Emma Taylor told Stuff this week that any claim New Zealand was arguing for less protection for underwater mountains is incorrect.

'New Zealand has proposed to close additional areas to bottom trawling which would increase protection of vulnerable marine ecosystems.

'[Our] proposal responds to and is based on, the most recent and best available science.”

It all sounds a bit fishy to me but, unless you are one of those ‘what happens at sea, stays at sea' sort of people then it seems like something we should keep an eye on.

Covid tracing reality show

Commercial fishing boats are often required to carry GPS tracking devices and cameras so they can be checked up on for dodgy practices.

Now, thanks to Covid, ordinary people are doing much the same thing and when one of us gets the dreaded lurgy, it provides a new kind of reality entertainment for the rest of us.

One minute you are going about your business and the next thing you know, you've got Covid and everyone else is studying your shopping habits and advancing slanderous theories about your personal life.

Now, I'm not one to gossip, but take the most recent case of the Northland woman who caught Covid, possibly off the ‘air conditioning' in her hotel from a guest nearby.

Now you can catch other things off air conditioning – Legionnaires Disease is one notable one – but that doesn't stop people from gossiping.

This latest case is also being hailed for her impeccable use of the Covid tracing app that you download on your phone.

Thanks to this we can get a fairly good picture of their taste in fashion, food and the regularity of trips to pubs and liquor outlets. This person has done more shopping in three days than I do in a month.

I kind of feel like this advances our knowledge of our fellow humans.

Keep the suggestions rolling in.

daniel@thesun.co.nz