Taretråling is conducted by a Norwegian run, American owned company – They have every freedom needed to operate a massive seaweed trawling business on the coast, however there are limits regulated by the Directorate of Fisheries.  These limits are supposed to conserve some of the wildlife otherwise destroyed by the trawlers activities so it is vital they are adhered to.

These limits are set out here  http://www.fiskeridir.no/

The page concerned is marked with an arrow and underlined.

On that page you will see this:

click on tare høstefelt and you will have the areas where taretråling, or seaweed trawling is allowed.

when the map has been selected you can use the mouse wheel to enlarge the picture such as here, you can also left click and hold down to drag the map across the screen to expose new areas.

The hatched areas are where they are allowed to harvest.  The code in each area signifies the year they are allowed to harvest in that area.

so for instance a trawler fishing in the hatched area on this map would be harvesting legally – in the clear or unhatched area – legally and thus subject to fines and other penalties.

If the boats are fishing in the areas marked as non fishing zones you will require video or photographs and clear land or sea marks so the position can be clearly triangulated.

We have successfully managed a prosecution because we had a line of markers clearly in our video – on one side it was legal, on the other illegal.

Once you have this information you need to contact the fiskeriedirektoratet

Slowly the quality and quantity of contacts with other organizations are growing.

The most important part of Environmentalism is information and its free use.  Once you have understood where and how your contacts stand then some really useful work can begin.

An article in Miljøvernforbunds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Warriors_of_Norway magazine MILJØ MAGASINET

was pointed out to us – It was about seaweed trawling or taretråling – one of the major points was that large amounts of seabirds disappear when Taretråling is done in the area – permanently too it seems.

We have contacted  the Norwegian ornithological organization http://www.birdlife.no/ about this but they don’t seem to be interested – we’ve spoken to many major ornithologists but their attitude seems to be – “WE ARE THE EXPERTS, AND WE DONT SEE ANYTHING UNUSUAL.” In other words they own the ornithological world and what they say goes.

It seems that the same is happening here http://www.nrk.no/nordland/mener-seismikkskyting-er-ufarlig-1.11943947

click for enlargement

An expert from the havasforsknings institut of Norway has said that there is no evidence that seismic testing affects sea life – so many people have been doing internet research and come up with very prestigious articles to the contrary.  It seems that Havsforsknings institut thinks they own information and can interpret it how they like to influence such matters.

click to read

This is just my comments but there are beginning to be many more with links –

In the scientific world it is reputation that is the most important thing  – our marine biologists and scientists are aware of this – it must be very frightening to have to please 2 masters at the same time.

Here is an article in Norwegian on Trawling – (from Jens)

click on image for full size

http://www.imr.no/temasider/redskap_og_teknologi/tral/bunntral/bunntraling/miljoeffektar_av_botntraling/nb-no article in full.

What I find most interesting about this is the difference in the information in this article and this one – this is very short and just a little part of a much larger piece

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749112003284%20%20%20This%20is%20a%20report%20on%20just%20this.

It is almost as if the information is being filtered.  Now who would benefit from that?

Following the various debates on trawling it is clear that Norway has a 20 kilometer zone inside which no bottom trawling is allowed.

The details I have not been able to firmly ascertain but reading the Wikipedia article on trawling some things begin to make sense

Double click on image to enlarge.

One major effect of bottom dredging is the disturbance of sediments

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/search?q=bottom+trawling

The re suspension of sediments means the release of chemicals back into nature

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0269749112003284 This is a report on just this.

Double click to read snip

We have nothing on the effects of continual trawling in the seaweed beds but I cannot imagine there is a major difference here – this occurs along the entire coast including bird reserves.

Could this be why  it is illegal to land blue halibut from Bodæ to Lofoten, or outside of Lofoten – they are contaminated by pcbs, but nobody seems to be aware of where these chemicals come from.

https://www.nrk.no/nordland/stenger-omrade-for-blakveitefiske-1.8139255

double click to read

Norway is a country well aware of any major marine disturbance so why is this allowed – perhaps this article may give some answers

https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/frykter-rokkestyrt-havforskning/65211190

We also found some anomalies at the last meeting on Taretråling in Trondheim – there seems to be some confusion about the rights of these trawlers

http://stopptt.com/final-day-of-the-trondheim-seaweed-harvesting-meeting/

It seems even the most senior in the fiskeriedirektoratet whose job it is to regulate the activities of these boats are more interested in protecting their activities then they are in regulating them.

http://www.fiskeridir.no/om-oss/telefon-og-e-post-til-ansatte/ressursavdelingen/reguleringsseksjonen/terje-halsteinsen

Seems strange that ordinary trawlers have such strict regulations whereas Seaweed trawlers have every difficulty removed, including priority over ancient rights belonging to our fishermen.

It appears many of Norway’s major institutions are governed by industrialists involved with exploiting marine resources.  This is quite understandable and in fact common – however the cost in terms of health to individuals and the state and indeed the ultimate cost should their activities impact nature in the way we are all warned about would dwarf any benefit accrued to society or to the individuals concerned.