Public urged to back ban on destructive fishing in protected areas

Western Telegraph

3 days ago

The Wildlife Trusts are calling on members of the public to lend their voice to support for moves to ban 'bottom trawling' – in which fishing gear is dragged across the seabed destroying habitats and scooping up a wide array of species – in protected areas of English seas.
A consultation is being run by the Marine Management Organisation until September 1, which includes bans on bottom trawling in 41 offshore marine protected areas (MPAs) that have been designated thanks to the importance of their seabeds, in moves to better protect 30,000 square kilometres of sea.
The call from The Wildlife Trusts to support the bans comes as polling for the charities reveals that eight out of 10 people agree that marine wildlife should be treated with the same care as species on land.
Conservationists say bottom trawling bans can help restore important marine habitats (Alexander Mustard/2020VISION/PA)
The survey of more than 2,000 people by Savanta also revealed that many people did not realise bottom trawling could still take place in many protected areas – with more than a third (36%) believing an MPA designation meant all wildlife and seabeds are protected from damaging activities.
Daniele Clifford, marine conservation officer for The Wildlife Trusts, said the UK's seas were full of 'incredible marine life', with habitats from cold-water corals to sandbanks, muds and chalk reefs supporting species from fish to whales, and storing huge amounts of carbon.
But much of that marine life is threatened, facing pressures such as destructive fishing practices.
Putting in marine protected areas was a 'tried and tested' method to help nature's recovery, but while many had been designated in British waters, they were not doing well because they were still being affected by pressures such as bottom trawling, she said.
The fishing method can destroy the habitat on the seabed, and the nets 'literally sweep up everything in their path', Ms Clifford said, creating a huge amount of bycatch, besides the one or two species targeted, which is then thrown back.
'If land-based nature reserves were being bulldozed, there would be an outcry.
'And yet bottom trawling has been going on for many years in these MPAs. It's about time proper management was implemented,' she said.
'We know that when you reduce pressures on marine life, it helps support their recovery. It's possible to recover our seas, we just need to remove those pressures.'
Unlike on land where active management may be required to help habitats and species recover, seas are more able to bounce back on their own if those pressures are removed, Ms Clifford said.
'You allow nature to do its thing and recover naturally.
'The benefit of this measure is our seas will recover – and we know people want healthy seas,' she said, adding restoring wildlife in MPAs had benefits for wider ocean health and fish stocks.
The UK's seas are full of marine life but much is threatened, conservationists say (Alex Mustard/2020VISION/PA)
Where bans have already been implemented in inshore MPAs, Ms Clifford said there were 'astonishingly' signs of recovery quite quickly, pointing to cold-water corals starting to recover within two to three years of restrictions in Lyme Bay, on the south coast, along with increases in scallops and lobsters.
And off the coast of Sussex, largely vanished kelp beds are being helped to recover in a major marine rewilding project thanks to restrictions on bottom trawling introduced in 2021.
The kelp was hit by stormy conditions in the 1980s and bottom trawling, leaving only 4% of the habitat remaining, affecting both an array of wildlife using it for shelter and food, and society which benefits from its role in reducing storm impacts and supporting fish stocks.
The habitat's restoration is 'a long process,' according to George Short, kelp recovery co-ordinator for Sussex Wildlife Trust, one of the partners in the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project.
'One of the key things about our work is letting nature lead in its own recovery.
'It's been impacted for decades, it's not an overnight recovery,' she said.
But nearly five years into the project, monitoring shows mussel beds – which form the hard bed on the seabed that kelp grows on – are starting to recover, as are the black sea bream once targeted by the trawling, she said.