We’ve just had a massive win for UK oceans, driven by your support. The UK government has finally announced its plan to ban destructive bottom trawling in parts of 41 UK Marine Protected Areas!
While this is not a total ban, it is a great victory for some of the UK’s most precious underwater habitats, beloved sea creatures and small-scale fishing communities.
A hard-won victory
Like many Greenpeace victories, this was years in the making. Five years ago, I sailed to a UK Marine Protected Area (MPA) on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza. We placed huge boulders on the seabed to block trawlers from dragging their nets across the ocean floor. If the government wouldn’t protect these so-called protected areas, we’d do it ourselves.
This ‘boulder barrier’ approach was so successful that we repeated it twice! These actions were made possible by supporters like you donating, signing petitions, emailing MPs and getting out on the streets, you have helped make real change for our blue planet. Huge thanks from all of us at Greenpeace – but the fight’s not over. To protect a third of our oceans by 2030, we need to stop destructive industrial fishing devastating our protected UK waters and get the Global Ocean Treaty signed into UK law.
Stopping the destruction
Bottom-trawlers are ships that drag vast, weighted nets across the sea floor, destroying everything in their path, from seagrass meadows to delicate coral reefs. Their trawl nets capture huge numbers of fish as well as other unwanted sea creatures, which are then often left to die.
It’s hard to believe that this has been completely legal in UK MPAs until now. In 2023 alone, industrial bottom trawlers spent an equivalent of four years tearing through UK offshore MPAs.
The campaign continues
This ban isn’t perfect. It doesn’t apply to every UK MPA, and it won’t stop other industrial fishing ships like supertrawlers and fly-shooters. So while this is a big step in the right direction, we need a total ban on all forms of destructive industrial fishing in every UK MPA.
Even so, take a moment to celebrate the bottom-trawling win. Whether you’ve donated to Greenpeace, signed a petition or volunteered with us, you helped make this happen. So share the good news with your friends, and let’s keep the victories going.