Black Foils back petition to end NZ bottom trawling
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- Black Foils won SailGP's Better Planet Impact League award after Live Ocean — the marine conservation foundation co-CEOs Blair Tuke and Peter Burling launched in 2019 — backed swimmer Jono Ridler's Swim4TheOcean campaign, with Tuke calling Live Ocean "in our DNA."
- Jono Ridler completed a 1,367km staged swim down New Zealand's North Island over 90 days and 468 hours, then delivered a 73,647-signature petition to parliament in April calling for an end to bottom trawling, drawing a hero's welcome from roughly 5,000 people in Wellington.
- New Zealand remains the only country still bottom trawling seamounts in the South Pacific; WWF-NZ polling published in April found 47% of New Zealanders identify bottom trawling as the greatest marine threat and 90% support limiting the practice.
- PM Christopher Luxon's government renewed a trawling permit for a vessel to continue bottom trawling seamounts despite the campaign's momentum, arguing environmental impacts must be balanced with economic benefits — though deep ocean seamount trawling represents less than 7% of New Zealand's deepwater fisheries exports.
- Live Ocean is calling for new trawling permits on seamounts to be banned, fully protected New Zealand seamounts by 2027, and a government-led transition moving the fishing industry away from bottom trawling entirely.
- In the UK, the government outlined plans in June 2025 to ban bottom trawling in 41 Marine Protected Areas but rejected an outright ban in September 2025; Tuke and Burling became 2016 Olympic gold medallists and 2017 America's Cup champions before founding Live Ocean.
Why it matters: With 90% of New Zealanders backing limits and a 73,647-signature petition in hand, the government's recent permit renewal — defended by Luxon despite seamount trawling making up under 7% of deepwater exports — makes November's general election a direct test of political will on marine protection.
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