A mural painted in Auckland depicting an orange roughy and bubblegum coral as the New Zealand government faces renewed pressure to ban bottom trawling on seamounts.

The mural, painted on Ponsonby Road by street artist Cinzah for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), is the first of a “Defend the Deep” mural series to be rolled out across the country, as a public call to protect the ocean from both bottom trawling and seabed mining.
The mural was painted to coincide with a South Pacific regional fisheries meeting this week, where New Zealand has continually argued against stricter regulation on bottom trawling to protect seamounts, instead shoring up New Zealand’s international bottom trawlers, the only fleet still bottom trawling on seamounts in the region’s international waters. This year’s review of the rules governing bottom trawling has been pushed to 2023, but campaigners point out that this shouldn’t delay Government action.