Over the past three weeks, we've created a 47 square mile area in the Dogger Bank Marine Protected Area that will begin to protect the seabed from destructive bottom trawling. But bottom trawling isn't the only type of industrial fishing happening in UK Marine Protected Areas. [1]
Our investigations have shown that supertrawlers, like the one stopped by our activists, were fishing in UK 'protected' areas for a total of 2963 hours in 2019 - the equivalent of four months. And a recent investigation has shown that supertrawler activity in our protected waters has almost doubled this year compared to last - and the year's not over yet! [2][3]
The government is failing to properly protect these ecologically important marine areas. [4] It's obvious - supertrawlers, which catch hundreds of tonnes of fish every day with nets up to a mile long, shouldn't be fishing anywhere near these waters. And yet the government still hasn't banned them from these protected waters - that's why we're taking action.
It's time to turn up the pressure. Can you tweet Environment Secretary, George Eustice - and tell him to listen to people and politicians across the country and ban destructive fishing from UK Marine Protected Areas?
