Photo: Supplied / Greenpeace
About 200 people have taken to kayaks, paddleboards and boats on Auckland's Hauraki Gulf to call for an end to bottom trawling.
The demonstration was organised by Forest and Bird and Greenpeace, and included a large banner in the waters just off Mission Bay today.
Protest coordinator Bianca Ranson said many species are in crisis from poor fishing practices.
"None of it makes sense and we need to make sure that we're putting our ecosystem before extractions ... we really need to take this seriously."
Ranson said the group was calling on the government to ban bottom trawling in the Hauraki Gulf.
Bottom trawling involves dragging a net along the seafloor.
"We're here to call for an end to destructive bottom trawling in the Hauraki Gulf Tīkapa Moana to protect our big blue backyard for the future," Greenpeace oceans campaigner Ellie Hooper said in a statement.
"All these people are here today because they want a thriving, vibrant Hauraki Gulf, free from the threat of destructive bottom trawling.
"Trawling has no place in this precious marine park and the public mandate for change is clear - over 84 percent of people surveyed want trawling gone from the gulf."
"Right now the government is considering decisions that will determine if the gulf thrives or declines further into ecological collapse," Ranson said.
"We're here to tell the government to listen to the tens of thousands of people that want protection, and not be influenced by fishing industry lobbyists. We need to protect the gulf, not the interests of the fishing industry."
But the seafood industry believes fishing is not the main threat to the Hauraki Gulf.
Seafood New Zealand chief executive Jeremy Helson is concerned today's protest is unhelpful because it has a limited focus.
"We need to have a look at all the stresses that are acting on the gulf, many of those come from the land, and take a more holistic view of how to manage that important piece of water."
He said the main threat to the gulf comes from many areas other than bottom trawling, including population growth and land use practices that cause sediment, pathogens and other contaminates.
Dr Helson said commercial fishers have significantly changed the way they fish in the past three decades with the number of fishing vessels reducing, technology and fishing gear improving and an increase in healthy fish stocks thanks to the quota management system.
