Activists have been calling on the government for years to stop the bottom trawl at Dogger Bank, an important offshore location for species such as sandpipers, hermit crabs, flatfish and starfish. Recent data have shown that the method of fishing, which involves heavy nets crawling on the seabed, had tripled in appearance in the Marine Protected Area (MPA) after Brexit. This is despite the fact that the area has been designated as an MPA. Bottom trawling occurs in many of these environmentally important areas, leading activists and experts to refer to them as “paper parks”. Not only does it disturb the seabed species, it is also an important source of carbon release, as the seabed usually acts as a valuable sink to absorb greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, but it becomes a source of carbon when disturbed. Now, the method will be banned, with government sources citing the new legislation as a result of “Brexit freedoms”. The four statutory laws, introduced using new powers under the 2020 Fisheries Act, will enter into force in June. Environment Secretary George Eustice said: “Outside the EU, we are using our newfound freedoms to protect our marine environment. “We will stop trawling and dredging in these marine protected areas to protect wildlife and habitats, through the powers we have in the Fisheries Act 2020.” In addition to Dogger Bank, there are three other MPAs rescued from the bottom trawl. These are the Inner Dowsing, Race Bank and North Ridge Conservation Area off the south coast of Lincolnshire, the South Dorset Marine Conservation Area and the Canyons Marine Conservation Area, located in the southwest corner of the mainland. United Kingdom. shelf area. However, experts have pointed out that there are 64 MPAs, most of which have minimal protection from catastrophic fishing. Melissa Moore, UK Oceana’s UK policy chief, said: to MPAs under the Conservation Act. “We fully support Dogger Bank’s statutory law which will protect the entire site and will have benefits for the North Sea ecosystem beyond that. However, the proposed Inner Dowsing MPA regulation is tiny and will only protect portions of the site. We call on the United Kingdom to rectify this and with decentralized governments acting swiftly to ban trailers in the remaining 60 offshore MPAs they promised to manage after Oceana’s legal challenge in 2021. This is now increasingly urgent due to climate change and ecological crises. “ Greenpeace has campaigned for the government to stop the trawlers at Dogger Bank, mainly by throwing stones at the MPA to stop the trawlers. The campaigns called on the government to use its post-Brexit powers to go further and ban destructive fishing practices in all MPAs. Fiona Nicholls, an ocean activist in Greenpeace UK, said: “It has been 18 months since Greenpeace built a protective boulder at Dogger Bank and since the government pledged to stop the bottom trawl in this iconic and ecological important area. While this is an important step towards protecting some of Dogger Bank’s most important environmental features, destructive industrial fishing vessels such as factory trawls will still be allowed to plunder this now partially protected area. “We need the government to put us on the right track this year for the full or high protection of all our marine protected areas. This means, as a starting point, the banning of all destructive industrial fishing vessels. This could be done by using post-Brexit powers to restrict fishing permits, rather than simply relying on the cumbersome process of introducing some restrictions on the site’s statutes. “Only then will the United Kingdom be a true world leader in marine protection and nature and coastal communities have a chance to recover.”
