In 2020, the UK government pledged to protect at least 30% of our seas by 2030 – known as ‘30×30’. In this report, Greenpeace UK analyses the UK’s entire network of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to establish whether the government is on track to properly protect 30% of UK waters by 2030.
Our key finding is that over 90% of MPAs are protected in name alone, with no meaningful, site-wide regulation on the most destructive fishing activity.
We examine the gap between the UK government’s marine protection claims and the situation out at sea, revealing just how much their rhetoric fails to match reality. We report the good news too, explaining that, broadly speaking, protection has been designated in the right places – although it’s not being enforced. The existing MPA network covers the majority of the UK’s range of marine seafloor habitats and, if properly managed, could enable ecosystem recovery. We explore how, on paper, the UK has ‘achieved’ 83% of the 2030 target and how it would take just 1% more of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) to reach the 2030 goal.
These lines on the map are pointless, however, if MPAs are not fully or highly protected. Whilst the public expect MPAs to be closed to the most harmful types of fishing, just 8% actually are – an area the size of less than 0.1% of the EEZ – with an industrial fishing frenzy continuing in most MPAs despite their protected status. We expose that, in real terms, the government is a long way off its 2030 target. Just two MPAs in the entire network are fully protected across their whole site.
We then explore the ways in which the government can achieve 30×30, examining areas where our post-Brexit powers have already given some ecosystems additional protections. We detail how these kinds of protections not only restore ecosystems, but also level up coastal communities, revive the UK fishing industry, improve food security and safeguard crucial ocean functions like carbon sequestration that help mitigate climate change.
The government has the power to deliver 30×30 and does not shy away from referring to itself as a world leader in marine protection. We conclude this report with a roadmap for how it can earn that status – a plan that begins by using the existing mechanism for licensing variation to immediately restrict all industrial fishing vessels from operating within MPAs.
Key findings
- Over 90% of MPAs are protected in name alone, with no meaningful, site-wide regulation on the most destructive fishing activity.
- Just two MPAs in the entire network are fully protected from all fishing activity (a ‘no-take zone’) across their whole site.
- 32% of the UK’s MPAs have no restrictions on fishing in the majority of the site, meaning 122 so-called ‘protected’ areas are substantially open, year-round, to all types of destructive fishing.
- Over 60% of offshore MPAs are substantially open to all fishing activity year-round.
- Just five of the UK’s 76 offshore MPAs are protected against bottom towed gear – a type of fishing gear that can damage the seabed, devastate marine life and release the seabed’s stored carbon. Only two of these have site-wide protection.
- Only 8% of UK MPAs – an area of ocean the size of less than 0.1% of the UK’s EEZ – are fully closed to all bottom and pelagic towed fishing gear and can sustain ecosystem recovery. No offshore MPAs are fully closed to all towed gear.
- Industrial fishing in UK MPAs is relentless. For example, in 2021 alone, vessels with bottom towed gear spent an estimated 47,833 hours fishing in UK offshore MPAs.
- An estimated 80% of seagrass, kelp forest, reefs and saltmarsh habitats, which are critical for biodiversity, are nominally protected within MPAs, but just 22% are safeguarded from bottom towed gear.
- Looking at the total area covered by the UK’s existing MPA network, 83% of the UK’s range of marine habitats are well represented within it. An additional area of just 8,061 km2 (1.1% of the UK’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)) would need to be designated as MPA to bring the full range of UK habitats up to a minimum of 30% protection. “Over 90% of MPAs are protected in name alone, with no meaningful, sitewide regulation on the most destructive fishing activity.”
- The lack of effective protection in the MPA network means that, despite extensive designations, the government is an alarmingly long way from realising its goal of 30×30.
- The current bylaws approach, whereby partial protections of MPAs are considered on a site-by-site basis, is too slow and not ambitious enough to address the crisis.
- Greenpeace UK is calling on the government to use its post-Brexit powers to apply variations to fishing licences in order to exclude all destructive industrial fishing vessels from the entire MPA network.
- Applying licence variations to restrict all industrial vessels from operating within MPAs should be prioritised as a swift, simple and effective first step to increase protection of MPAs and get the UK on track towards fully or highly protecting at least 30% of our waters by 2030.
- Greenpeace UK has set out a step-by-step roadmap for the government to reach its 2030 target of 30% ocean protection.