Canada will not support a halt of bottom trawling in international waters despite calls from a group of countries, including the U.S., that are pushing for a moratorium.

"Canada, like many other responsible fishing nations, does not see (a moratorium) as the way forward," Federal Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn said in a statement Friday.  "Real solutions must be practical, enforceable and fair."

Hearn said a moratorium would not be the most effective way to protect marine species from the large trawling nets that sweep the ocean floor.

The fishing tactic is used to prevent fish from slipping underneath the heavy nets but in the process, thousand-year-old coral and other sea life are swept up and destroyed.

Some critics have likened it to bulldozing the ocean floor.

Canada's decision follows meetings at the United Nations this week where delegates from a variety of countries voiced their concerns on the issue of dragging.

Along with the United States, the following nations support the moratorium in international waters: Australia, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Norway and Brazil.

U.S. President George Bush called upon the international community to end "destructive fishing practices, such as unregulated bottom trawling on the high seas."

Spain, Iceland and Japan are in line with Canada, making it very difficult for the UN to pass a resolution outlawing the practice.

Environmentalists say Canadian officials don't want to set a precedent against trawling because the practice is permitted within domestic waters.

"I guess even we underestimated the hold of the dragger industry on the minister of fisheries," Mark Butler of the Ecology Action Centre in Halifax told The Canadian Press.

"(Lining) up with countries like Spain to oppose the moratorium disregards the views of scientists, most fishermen and the Canadian public."

But Hearn defended the position, calling instead for an extended reach of fisheries management organizations, like the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO), within unregulated waters.

Hearn said such organizations should be given sweeping powers "to find and protect vulnerable habitat and other marine resources, and the teeth to deal harshly with those who break the rules."

Addressing critics who claim such organizations have proven ineffective in the past, Hearn said that will change after reforms to NAFO, which is responsible for the fisheries beyond Canada's waters.

In a news release, the Fisheries Council of Canada, which represents fish processors and marketers, called Hearn's position "responsible, pragmatic and effective."

They called Canada's decision a rejection of "extreme approaches."

"Blunt instruments do not work," said the release.  "Canadians prefer positive actions that respect the environment and the people who work the industry."

Hearn has previously agreed that trawling can damage ecosystems but he touted NAFO's proposal to ban fishing activity from four seamounts in the Atlantic as evidence that progress is being made.

However, critics like Jennifer Lash of Living Oceans Society say the proposal is too weak.

"For the Canadian government to have a dramatically weaker position than George Bush's position does not bear well for our international reputation."

With a report from CTV's John Vennavally-Rao