Follow the crew of the Arctic Sunrise on their campaign for Marine Reserves in our North Sea Tour blog
Apparently you can't trust the truck drivers of the sea for reliable weather forecasts and we are once again forced to head in closer to land. This time we decided to skip the anchor and get alongside right in the lion's den, the Danish fishing town called Hanstholm, where a lot of the trawlers we are looking for also have chosen to seek refuge from the stormy seas. Being surrounded by all these beam trawlers here in Hanstholm got me thinking about how truly bizarre it is that the bottom trawling methods they are using are actually legal.
It seems to be a universal fact that the strength of our moral engagements and concerns, in both other people and issues, are weakened as the geographic and cultural distance increases. Most of us also have a hard time really caring about things we things we can't see or picture. Destructive fishing is probably a good example of one such thing - most of us haven't done any, most of us haven't seen any ocean floors without narration by David Attenborough, and most of us can't Now, just attach your vehicles to each end of the beam with your chains and head out into a suitable forest. Keep land trawling for a couple of hour and then empty your net. Sort out the foxes and chuck all the bushes, trees, hedgehogs, reindeer, rabbits and other things you might also have caught in a big pile, reset your gear and cheerfully land trawl away in another direction.
I remember googleing land trawling a few weeks ago but no one seemed to be doing it. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that it would be completely insane to do so, the amount of destruction caused for every fox caught would be horrible and completely unacceptable to anyone. Nevertheless, I really think someone should pick up on this and actually organise some land trawling in order to show people how destructive and loony these methods are.
So, if you have any thoughts land trawling, ideas about the construction, a suitable location, or (even better) if you are already land trawling – please let me know.
