Greenpeace announces new ocean boulder barrier plans, telling PM: “If your government won’t protect our seas, we will”

Stephen Fry, Paloma Faith and Simon Pegg back Greenpeace UK’s direct action as government is accused of failing on ocean protection

Greenpeace UK has today announced its intention to create new underwater boulder barriers in UK Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). 

A decade after the Brexit vote, the charity, backed by a raft of celebrities and ocean conservation organisations, has accused the government of failing to use its post-Brexit powers to properly protect UK seas from destructive industrial fishing.

In 2020, The Fisheries Act gave the UK government full powers to protect UKMPAs. Despite this, destructive industrial fishing vessels are still allowed to trawl the vast majority of these so-called protected areas. Last year the government announced plans to ban bottom trawling in 41 MPAs but, since the consultation ended more than six months ago, no action has been taken. And even if bottom trawling was banned in these areas, other forms of industrial fishing would still be allowed to continue and MPAs left vulnerable. [1]

Earlier this year, Greenpeace UK’s analysis revealed a staggering 1.3 million tonnes of fish had been caught in offshore UK MPAs since 2020. Over 1 million tonnes were caught by pelagic trawlers – a method that would not be restricted by current bottom-trawling proposals. 

Greenpeace says it now has “no choice but to step in” and use its ships to create more boulder barriers, similar to those it created in UK MPAs in 2020, 2021 and 2022, to repel destructive industrial trawlers and turn the UK’s weak MPAs into properly protected ocean sanctuaries.

Greenpeace UK’s co-exec director Will McCallum said: 

“Post-Brexit powers to fully protect marine protected areas have been available to successive governments for the last five years but all have sat back and let destructive industrial fishing continue. Our oceans cannot wait any longer. If this government won’t protect our seas, we will.”

In a letter [2] to the Prime Minister signed by leading ocean conservation organisations including Oceana, Blue Marine Foundation, The Angling Trust and Rewilding Britain, as well as public figures including Stephen Fry, Paloma Faith, Simon Pegg and Mya-Rose Craig, Greenpeace UK writes: 

“Despite leaving the European Union with stronger powers to conserve our marine environment, these powers have not been utilised. Our seas are being pushed to the brink as industrial fishing vessels continue to plough through so-called protected areas, emptying them of fish, killing precious wildlife like sharks, dolphins and sea birds – all of which ultimately damages economic opportunity in our coastal communities…

“In 2020, 2021 and 2022, we sailed Greenpeace vessels into three of the most intensively fished marine protected areas in the UK and created underwater barriers with boulders to stop industrial bottom trawling from ripping up precious ecosystems… Years later, the places we created barriers are still protected, while successive governments have failed to stop the rampant destruction of the vast majority of so-called marine protected areas. 

“This leaves us no choice but to step in again… Using our ships, we will create more boulder barriers to repel destructive industrial trawlers and turn the UK’s weak Marine Protected Areas into proper protected Ocean Sanctuaries.

“This is a wake up call: no more broken promises, it’s time to act. If your government is serious about ocean protection, it must properly protect our seas at home, work harder to protect the interests of coastal communities and push further by creating protected places for wildlife across the Atlantic ocean.”

Stephen Fry, Paloma Faith and Simon Pegg added their own voices directly to the call for the government to properly protect UK MPAs. 

Paloma Faith said: “Marine Protected Areas should be exactly that: protected. Yet industrial fishing trawlers are still being allowed into them, putting the wildlife and habitats they were meant to protect at risk. It’s hard to understand how this has been allowed to continue for so long. I’m grateful that Greenpeace are taking action where governments have repeatedly fallen short. Our oceans are under enormous pressure, and these protections must become more than a promise on paper.”

Stephen Fry said: “Permitting industrial trawlers to continue plundering areas of the ocean designated for protection is not merely absurd; it’s a complete failure of common sense. This shockingly destructive practice urgently needs to stop. In the absence of government action to fully protect marine protected areas, thank heavens for Greenpeace.” 

Simon Pegg said: “Properly protecting our Marine Protected Areas isn’t complicated. All the paperwork was done years ago and yet the government is still delaying. I’m delighted that Greenpeace are taking the matter into their own hands and taking real, concrete, action – quite literally. It worked before and it will work again. Let’s get these special areas protected – for wildlife, for local communities and for us all.”

ENDS

Contact: Greenpeace UK Press Office on press.uk@greenpeace.org

Notes to Editors: 

Download images of previous boulder drops here: https://media.greenpeace.org/Detail/27MZIFJHLDTXJ 

[1] The Fisheries Act 2020 introduced new powers for authorities to make byelaws to manage fishing in all UK MPAs for the conservation of marine flora, fauna and habitats. 

To date, under the Marine Management Organisation’s marine protected areas process, just 17 of the UK’s 78 offshore (beyond 12 nautical miles from the coast) MPAs have been afforded some kind of protection.

The Marine Management Organisation’s marine protected areas byelaws process has 4 stages covering England’s MPAs. 

• In 2020, Greenpeace placed boulders in the Dogger Bank MPA, which was subsequently closed by the government to bottom trawling, along with another 3 MPAs as part of Stage 1 of the process.
• In 2021 Greenpeace placed boulders in the Offshore Brighton MPA. Bottom trawling was subsequently banned there alongside another 12 MPAs as part of Stage 2. 
• In September 2022, Greenpeace dropped boulders in the South West Deeps MPA. This MPA is included in the Stage 3 proposals announced by the government in June 2025 to ban bottom trawling in a further 41 English MPAs. The government is yet to act following consultation on these proposals.
• To date, no announcement has been made indicating the start of Stage 4 which covers the impacts of fishing on MPAs with highly mobile species features. These are two MPAs protecting harbour porpoise, and three MPAs protecting certain bird species.

Greenpeace UK has criticised the process as inadequate because it takes a piecemeal approach, proposing to ban only certain fishing gear types from certain areas – in some cases not even across complete MPAs – rather than protecting UK MPAs site-wide from all destructive industrial fishing.

• In its official response to the Stage 3 consultation, Greenpeace UK stated: 

“The appropriate response is to protect offshore MPAs site-wide from destructive, industrial fishing of all types, using the power enshrined in the Fisheries Act. Anything less will continue to fall short, for marine life and vulnerable habitats, for low impact fishers and fishing communities, and for the wider UK public.”

[2] A copy of the full letter and signatories is available on request.