Report | November, 2024

Mission Regeneration: A Roadmap to End Overfishing & Restore Life to UK Seas

Overfishing is harming marine wildlife in the UK

 

  • The dire state of UK’s fish populations along with a chaotic and unjust approach to catch quotas means a radically new approach to overfishing is needed to boost ocean health and coastal economies.
  • We propose a range of measures including establishing a legally binding deadline on overfishing; banning supertrawlers; safeguarding marine protected areas; and making fishing quotas fair.
  • Eight in ten Brits are concerned about the impacts of declining fish populations on ocean wildlife such as seabirds and dolphins, polling revealed, and 78% backed our calls for stricter limits on catches in UK seas, in line with what scientists say is sustainable.

Following Oceana’s 2023 report showing that half of the UK’s key fish populations were either overfished or critically low, the charity has launched a roadmap to ending overfishing and restoring ocean health.

After speaking to small-scale fishers, academics, and environmentalists from around the UK, the charity developed Mission Regeneration: A roadmap to end overfishing and restore life to UK seas for a fishing sector based on the principles of science, fairness, resilience, transparency and respect.

For each of the five core principles, we provide time-bound actions for government to take. By the end of 2025, the government should have made a legally binding, science-led deadline to end overfishing, along with a ban on ‘supertrawlers’ over 100 metres long, which hoover up vast quantities of ocean life.

The resilience of UK seas in the face of other serious threats, such as the climate crisis and pollution, is also vital and requires measures to rejuvenate and protect ocean wildlife, such as urgently banning destructive bottom-trawl fishing in marine protected areas.

The government must also act to level the playing field so that those that fish with nature, rather than against it, are rewarded with a greater share of quota and more taxpayer money goes towards sustainable practices.

As well as the specific measures that are the building blocks of ending overfishing, the government will also need to organise itself differently. It must move away from siloed thinking: fishing and ocean health are not only issues for policymakers focused on environment or industry, but also climate, communities and trade.

The call for action is echoed by the UK public, according to new polling data. Eight in ten people (82%) are concerned about the impacts of declining fish populations on ocean wildlife, and the same proportion (80%) is worried that those who work in the fishing industry would lose their livelihoods if fish populations continued to fall. A total of 78% of those asked supported the government introducing stricter, science-based limits on how many fish can be caught in UK seas.