BAN plundering supertrawlers from UK waters
MASSIVE supertrawlers – including ships from Russia and the Netherlands – spent a staggering 2,963 hours in designated marine conservation zones around Britain’s coast in 2019, in clear breach of the rules, shocking new analysis has shown.
The activities in Marine Protection Areas (MPAs), the umbrella term for places at sea which are meant to be protected from environmentally damaging activity, have been blamed for the deaths of large numbers of porpoises last year. More than 1,000 are believed to have died as a result of being tangled up in nets. And with the question of access to UK waters still the subject of heated debate, environmental campaigner group Greenpeace has today urged the Government to seize the opportunity presented by Brexit to ban supertrawler operations from UK waters.
Chris Thorne, Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Our Government allowing destructive supertrawlers to fish for thousands of hours every year in Marine Protected Areas makes a mockery of the word protected.
“Even an hour of supertrawler activity inside an ecologically sensitive marine environment is too much, let alone almost 3000.
“For our Government to be taken seriously as a leader in marine protection, it must ban supertrawler operations in the UKs Marine Protected Areas.”
Greenpeace is urging the Government to work towards the creation of Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs), as recommended in the Department for Environment, Fisheries and the Regions’ Highly Protected Marine Areas review.
The plan aims to ensure at least 30 percent of the UKs waters, and 30 percent of the worlds oceans, are fully protected by 2030, a scientifically agreed target backed by the UK Government.
Mr Thorne added: “Will our Government heed the recommendations of the Highly Protected Marine Area review and seize the historic opportunity Brexit provides to fix the UKs broken network of Marine Protected Areas, or will it allow the flawed status quo to continue?”
Supertrawlers are vessels which are more than 100m in length capable of catching hundreds of tonnes of fish every day using nets up to a mile long.
Greenpeace’s investigation, which examined AIS tracking data from the Lloyds Register for all fishing boats over 100m, showed 25 supertrawlers were active in UK waters in 2019 and spent time fishing in 39 of the 73 UK Marine Protected Areas (MPAS).
In total, 15 of the supertrawlers operating in UK waters are Russian owned, nine are Dutch owned and one is Polish owned.
One of the supertrawlers active in British waters is UK-flagged, the Frank Bonefaas, but under Dutch ownership.
The EU supertrawlers which spent the most time fishing in MPAs were the Willem van der Zwan, Maartje Theodora, Annelies Ilena and the Margiris – the four biggest supertrawlers in the world.
The Wyville Thomson Ridge was overwhelmingly the worst affected MPA because of the concentration of the Russian supertrawler fleets activity.
All were operating legally, and Greenpeace has launched a petition urging the UK government to ban supertrawlers, which they argue are incompatible with properly protected marine areas, from fishing in MPAs.
The 39 MPAs affected by supertrawler operations in 2019 are all in offshore waters (beyond 12 nautical miles from the coast). All protect important marine ecosystems and species, including porpoises and reefs.
One of the MPAs most heavily fished in by supertrawlers in 2019 was the Southern North Sea (east coast of England), created to safeguard porpoises which are particularly threatened by supertrawlers – 1,105 porpoises died in fishing nets in 2019.
The worst affected MPAs in 2019 were the Wyville Thomson Ridge (off the Shetlands), Geikie Slide and Hebridean Slope (off the Hebrides), Offshore Overfalls (south coast), Faroe-Shetland Sponge Belt (off the Shetlands), Darwin Mounds (off the Hebrides) and Southern North Sea (east of England).
Greenpeace used AIS tracking data from the Lloyds Register for all fishing boats over 100m to assess the amount of time all trawlers over 100m spent fishing in UK MPAs.
Jeremy Percy, director of the New Under Ten Fishermen’s Association (NUFTA), which represents fishermen who use boats of less than ten metres in length, told Express.co.uk: “It is a fundamental nonsense to allow these vessels into MPA’s.
“Irrespective of their claims to have a zero bycatch, evidence of similar operations gives rise to concerns.
“In relation to their activities in the English Channel, there appears to be a ‘coincidental’ washing up of dead cetaceans along their path.
“Secondly, we have long campaigned for these vessels to be required to have remote electronic monitoring (REM) fitted.
“I’m not suggesting that all small is beautiful and all big is bad but the potential impact of these vessels due to their size and fishing power makes them prime candidates for REM.
“There have been no physical inspections of any of this fleet over the Covid period and even when the UK authorities were boarding them it was only rarely and of course these vessels can fish in conditions where it is impossible to board them for inspections.”
Referring to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), an executive non-departmental public body established in 2009, Mr Percy added: “With regard to the the requirement for REM, we are told by the MMO that the UK is unable to require these vessels to have it fitted, and neither can the EU. It is only the member state where the vessel is registered that can do so and there is little to no chance of that happening.”
A Defra spokeswoman told Express.co.uk: “The UK is a global leader in the fight to protect our seas with our Blue Belt of protected waters nearly twice the size of England.
“The Common Fisheries Policy currently restricts our ability to implement tougher protection, but leaving the EU and taking back control of our waters as an independent coastal state means we can introduce stronger measures.”
A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “Scotlands Marine Protected Area network currently covers 22 percent of our seas, supporting nature conservation, protecting our historic marine sites and helping to develop new approaches to marine management.
“We have committed to achieving 30 percent coverage by 2030 based on the sustainable use of our waters, as established in our legal framework.
“We continue to monitor vessels through our Marine Protection Vessels patrols and our 24/7 electronic surveillance to deter and detect any infringements.”
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