EU faces new legal action over bottom trawling in protected areas
The lawyers behind it say that continuing to permit this activity goes against the bloc's core nature laws and puts the ocean and people in grave danger.
Bottom trawling is a destructive fishing practice which involves dragging a net - some so large it could fit a Boeing 747 plane - across the seafloor to catch fish. It disturbs sediment, destroys marine habitats and far more than just the target species gets caught in these nets.
The complaint is being brought to the European Commission by a coalition of non-profit organisations: ClientEarth, Oceana, Seas at Risk and Danmarks Naturfredningsforening.
It points out persistent instances of unchallenged bottom trawling in three countries: Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain. The challenge claims that destructive fishing practices in MPAs in these member states flout the EU Habitats Directive and calls on EU officials to launch infringement action against the countries in question.
The Habitats Directive requires Natura 2000 MPAs - the most important network of marine protected areas in Europe - to be protected from any activity likely to significantly affect the integrity of the site.
'Legally speaking, bottom trawling in protected areas is not legal, and if policymakers don't live up to their obligations, we will bring them before court,' says Tobias Troll, marine policy director from Seas at Risk.
ClientEarth ocean lawyer John Condon adds that 'urgent action' is needed at the EU level to confirm that bottom trawling is against EU law, alongside an 'immediate response' from governments.
This legal challenge is the latest in a string of litigation across the EU over bottom trawling in MPAs. Individual national cases have so far been launched in France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden and Germany.
In April, another group of NGOs filed a similar legal complaint with the EU, alleging breaches of the EU Habitats Directive by Italy, France and Germany.
'This complaint, and others like it, reveal a systemic problem across Europe and one that member states have failed to address for years now, contrary to their legal obligations under EU law,' explains Nicolas Fournier, campaign director for marine protection at Oceana in Europe.
The new legal challenge also comes hot off the heels of a crucial judgment from the EU's General Court in May, which confirmed that protected areas must be protected from potentially harmful practices like bottom trawling.
The Commission concluded that countries have every right under EU law to ban damaging fishing methods like this in vulnerable marine areas.
Some EU countries, like Greece and Sweden, have already announced plans for national legislation to ban bottom trawling in protected areas within their territories. The EU's 2023 Marie Action Plan calls on member states to phase out bottom trawling in all MPAs by 2030.
But recent research from NGOs Oceana, Seas At Risk and ClientEarth revealed that no EU country currently has a comprehensive plan in place to phase out destructive fishing practices in these protected areas. And a study published in March this year by Pristine Seas found that around 60 per cent of these vulnerable marine areas in the EU are currently being trawled.
With the UN set to host its Ocean Conference in Nice, France, on 9 June and the EU expected to release its strategy to promote a sustainable and competitive blue economy in the next few days, pressure is mounting for more comprehensive ocean protection.
Campaigns calling for action on destructive fishing practices in the EU have been backed by fishermen and hundreds of thousands of Europeans.
'The world is waiting for leaders at UNOC to defend the ocean, and make sure protected genuinely means protected,' adds noted MPA defender and founder of the Mediterranean Conservation Society, Zafer Kızılkaya.
'Fishers depend on it - communities depend on it - the world depends on it.'
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