Greenpeace to patrol UK waters in campaign to prevent destructive fishing in protected areas

Greenpeace is trying to force the government to ‘get ocean protection done’, but as destructive fishing soars, reining it in is becoming increasingly difficult, writes Harry Cockburn

Launch of Operation Ocean Witness. A new Greenpeace ship called Sea Beaver will patrol the UK’s protected areas off the south coast (Fionn Guilfoyle / Greenpeace)

Greenpeace UK is launching a six-month long campaign to “do what the government has so far failed to do” and protect the UK’s designated marine protected areas from destructive fishing.

It said preventing destructive fishing practices in these areas was a “key Brexit promise which has been broken”, as the government continues to permit such practices to legally take place.

A new Greenpeace ship called Sea Beaver will patrol the areas off the UK’s south coast, and will operate out of Newhaven from June until Autumn 2021.

The launch of the initiative, called “Operation Ocean Witness” comes as the latest figures from international conservation organisation Oceana show destructive bottom trawling fishing boats spent 68,000 hours fishing in the UK’s protected areas in 2020. Protected areas are specifically set up to help protect sea beds.

Greenpeace said it will document and expose the destructive fishing practices the UK government still permits in UK protected areas, as well as document the biodiversity of the UK’s seas, while engaging with fishing communities along the south coast to help build a more sustainable fishing sector.

Chris Thorne, an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Our government calls itself a global ocean champion while allowing destructive industrial fishing vessels to operate freely in our protected areas.

“We’ve heard enough rhetoric, which is why we’re launching Operation Ocean Witness. We will do our government’s job for them, holding the most destructive fishing vessels to account and making sure our government can’t hide the destruction taking place in our oceans, which so often remains beyond the horizon and out of sight for most of the public.”

He added: “Our government needs to deliver on its Brexit promise to level up ocean protection. A world-leading network of marine protected areas, where all bottom trawlers and supertrawlers are banned, would revive our seas and coastal communities, unify our divided nation and make Britain a genuine leader in marine protection.”

Melissa Moore, head of UK policy at Oceana in Europe, said: “Our analysis of 2020 data released today has found that there was a large increase in fishing with destructive bottom towed gear in UK Marine Protected Areas despite the pandemic.

“This activity contravenes wildlife law and needs to be banned from our protected areas, rather than licensing over a thousand UK and EU vessels to continue their damaging activities with impunity. International commitments are welcome, but must be matched by domestic action.”

Greenpeace said super trawler fishing hours in protected areas have also increased significantly every year since 2017.

Super trawlers, also known as “factory trawlers” are boats which exceed 100 metres in length, can catch hundreds of tonnes of fish each day with nets more than a mile long, and can stay at sea for months, processing and packaging fish.

“This is all legal, with there being almost no restrictions on industrial fishing in UK offshore protected areas, especially those which protect the seabed,” the organisation said.

The industrial scale of the fishing operations are having a huge impact on biodiversity around the world, destroying many habitats and worsening the climate emergency by disturbing vast stores of carbon which would otherwise remain safely in the deep oceans.

Earlier this year it was revealed that global emissions from bottom trawling are equivalent to the entire global aviation industry, while UK protected areas in offshore waters store an estimated 26.5 million tonnes of carbon.

The UK government claimed that following Brexit, it would better protect the UK’s seas, with the Prime Minister saying that he would ban “hoover trawlers” when speaking to Andrew Marr in January 2021.

“This has not happened,” Greenpeace said, while meanwhile the UK fishing industry has been hugely impacted by the fallout of Brexit.

The organisation is calling for the government to “get ocean protection done” by banning bottom trawlers and supertrawlers from operating in all UK protected areas as a matter of urgency.

A spokesperson for Defra told The Independent: “The UK is a global leader in the protection of our seas, with our ‘Blue Belt’ of Marine Protected Areas extending across 38 per cent of UK waters.

“We are committed to achieving a healthy and sustainable marine environment. Now we have left the EU, the Marine Management Organisation is consulting on additional safeguards for four of our precious Marine Protected Areas, including banning activities that harm wildlife or damage habitats.”