Northern prawn fishermen have rejected claims their industry is as destructive to the ocean as clear-felling of forests on land.

A new report released by a number of Australian environmental groups has branded sea floor fishing as being "indiscriminate" in its impact on
marine life.

But commercial prawn fishers rubbished the report, claiming their fishery was well managed, and had a small bycatch
footprint.

The report claimed the northern prawn fishery, which covers a 771,000sq km area from Cape York to Cape Londonderry in Western Australia, caught 500 shark and fish species as
bycatch.

It said the fishery killed at least five tonnes of marine life, including endangered and high-risk species, for every tonne of prawns that made it to market.

Environment Centre of the Northern Territory director Stuart Blanch said the report demonstrated sea floor trawling was as destructive as the clear-felling of forests on land.

"Imagine knocking down a forest to catch the animals that live there, this is what sea floor trawling does," Dr Blanch said.

"This trawling, along with offshore gillnets which are up to 8km long walls of death hanging in the ocean, are devastating our marine life."

Austral general manager Andy Prendergast, whose prawn trawler fleet is one of the largest operating in the Gulf of Carpentaria, said for the past 15 years the fishery had been using sustainable practices such as bycatch reduction devices and regularly assessing sites for damage to the resource.

"The northern prawn fishery would have to be one of the best data sets of all fisheries in the world for bycatch reduction," Mr Prendergast said.

"We have several devices that we put into our nets to reduce bycatch and we’ve been using these devices since 2001.

"We have a very small footprint as far as bycatch goes."

There are 52 vessels – including several based in Cairns – employing up to 300 people operating in the northern prawn fishery.

The value of the fishery was estimated between $65 and $185 million since it opened in the 1970s.

Queensland Seafood Industry Association president Michael Gardner said it was "unrealistic" to describe the northern prawn fishery as unsustainable.

Gavan McFadzean from the Wilderness Society called on Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke to rule out any watering down of proposed new marine sanctuaries to benefit sea floor trawling or gillnet fishing.

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