Chile Permanently Bans Bottom Trawling Around Its Seamounts - Oceana

Victory | April 6, 2015

Chile Permanently Bans Bottom Trawling Around Its Seamounts

Chile became the first nation in the world to permanently ban bottom trawling around all of 117 seamounts located within its Exclusive Economic Zone. Chile finalized the new regulation after six years of campaigning by Oceana, who first addressed the issue in 2009 by proposing amendments to Chilean Fisheries Law for protecting vulnerable and sensitive habitat. Oceana also conducted expeditions to many of Chile’s seamounts over the past few years, such as around Salas y Gómez, Easter Island and the Juan Fernández islands, to document important marine diversity and call for protections. Now, 68,065.63 square kilometers of Chile’s waters are protected from bottom trawling.