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BRIEFING FOR PARLIAMENTARIANS: BANNING BOTTOM TRAWLING IN UK MARINE PROTECTED AREAS

 

The UK’s marine ‘protected’ areas were subjected to over 33,000 hours of suspected bottom trawling* in 2023, reveals new analysis from Oceana UK. This destructive form of fishing effectively bulldozes seafloor habitats and has an extremely high rate of bycatch – indiscriminately scooping up untargeted wildlife. Despite this, it is permitted in almost all UK MPAs. Oceana also found that just 10 vessels were responsible for over a quarter of this damaging activity – none of which were UK vessels. Urgent political action is needed to achieve a complete ban on bottom trawling across all marine protected areas (MPAs), in their entirety, says Oceana.

*All references to “fishing” or “apparent fishing effort” should be understood in the context of Global Fishing Watch’s fishing detection algorithm. More information here.