Saving an Undiscovered Sea World

Deep beneath the surface, vast communities of alien sea life make their home on underwater mountain ranges, or seamounts, most of which are completely unknown to science. In the South Pacific, orange roughy -- an ancient-looking fish that suffers the great misfortune of tasting good to humans -- lives to be 150 years old, reaching sexual maturity only around its 33rd year. Nearby, invertebrates ward off would-be predators using highly evolved chemical defenses -- some of which, we're beginning to discover, may also treat human diseases.

Then the bottom-trawlers arrive: fishermen dragging giant nets that indiscriminately slurp up all life in their path, razing the corals and sponges that make up the undersea canopy. The wake settles, but life does not return; in deep, dark environments, things grow too slowly to bounce back.

This summer, NRDC science and policy experts helped win the passage of a landmark international agreement that, as of September 30, will dramatically restrict bottom-trawling in 52 million square miles of the South Pacific's high seas. Even New Zealand -- home to 90 percent of the vessels that trawl the region's high seas -- signed on, signaling that they too recognize the folly of such unsustainable practices. The next step is to close the major markets in the United States, Europe, and Japan. Here at home, regulations adopted last year under the reauthorized Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act will close all U.S. ports to countries whose fishing vessels operate in violation of international laws and agreements governing fishing. The European Union plans to consider similar rules this fall.  --Laura Wright