European leaders are facing growing pressure from campaigners and ocean advocates to strengthen regulation and the enforcement of protections afforded to many of their marine protected areas by banning destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling within their waters for good.
Led by a consortium of environmental campaigners including the Blue Marine Foundation, Oceana, Only One, and Seas at Risk, the Protect Our Catch campaign has published an open letter addressed directly to the French President, Emmanuel Macron and the EU Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, which warns that without urgent action against trawling, Europe’s protected marine spaces risk being stripped of marine life.
Backed by a community of fishers as well as thousands of citizen activists, the campaign argues that an ocean devoid of marine life will have “devastating consequences for small-scale fishers, biodiversity, and the fight against climate change”.
Instead, the Protect Our Catch campaign would like to see the leaders across Europe invest more into the future of small-scale, more sustainable fishing while protecting seas from trawling and restoring marine ecosystems.
Bottom trawling is the focus of the fight. A fishing method in which heavy nets are dragged along the seabed, trawling has faced accusations of being indiscriminate in its fashion as it essentially scoops up all marine life in its path. This lends itself not only to a ‘tearing up’ of the seafloor – notable for its role in carbon sequestration – but heavy levels of bycatch, further endangering some of the ocean’s most vulnerable species.
Despite the case against it, bottom trawling continues routinely across the ocean seabeds, even within areas under the supposed protection of established regulation. This includes many of Europe’s marine protected areas (MPAs).
In June 2022, France’s President Macron said the world must “set ambitious goals for biodiversity and especially for the ocean.” In their letter to the president, however, campaigners argue that the country has failed to make any “meaningful progress” on banning bottom trawling and other destructive fishing practices in its protected spaces.
It’s a stance, the campaign suggests, that deeply threatens France’s claim to be a steward for the ocean. With France about to step into the spotlight on environmental issues – as it prepares to host this year’s United Nations Ocean Conference in June – the Protect Our Catch campaign is demanding France “live up to its responsibilities” and “put an end to its hypocrisy”.
Should France take a stance in implementing “real protections” across its MPA network, argues the campaign, it would create “critical momentum” for other European members states to do the same and align themselves with recent action by Sweden to ban bottom trawling in their own national MPAs.
Simultaneously, the campaign has urged EU leadership in the Parliament and the Commission to ‘double down’ on enforcement of existing EU regulations, especially those within the Habitats Directive.
The call is backed by strong public sentiment across Europe. In fact, a recent poll indicates that 90% of Europeans believe MPAs are essential for preserving marine biodiversity while 73% would support a ban on bottom trawling within protected areas.
Clare Brook, CEO of the Blue Marine Foundation, said: “Bottom trawling is a damaging and indiscriminate fishing method which ploughs up precious habitats, decimates biodiversity, and depletes the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon.
“Yet, this highly destructive type of fishing is still allowed in the majority of marine protected areas. We must ensure that bottom trawling is excluded from all marine protected areas without exception.”
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