At least 23 supertrawlers measuring more than 100 metres in length owned by EU member states have already spent more than twice as long fishing in specially designated marine conservation areas in UK waters as they did in the whole of 2019, new research has indicated.
The new report comes after 57 MPs from across the political spectrum put their names to a letter calling for the Government to enforce a ban on the enormous vessels entering the zones, UK Marine Preservation Areas (MPAs) after Britain exits the transition period with the EU at the end of the year.
The investigation, undertaken by the environmental pressure group Greenpeace, revealed that while ships such as the Dutch-flagged Margiris, as well as numerous Russian craft, spent 2,963 hours fishing in 39 protected areas, in the first six months of 2020, supertrawlers had spent 5,590 hours fishing in 19 protected areas.
23 supertrawlers have been operating in UK waters so far this year, but not a single one of the ships in question is UK-owned, although some are registered in the United Kingdom.
Chris Thorne, an Oceans Campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “Our Government cannot continue to allow supertrawlers to fish with ever-increasing intensity in parts of our waters that are supposed to be protected.
“It must step in and put a stop to industrial supertrawler operations within our offshore marine protected areas, something which will be possible after Britain leaves the Common Fisheries Policy.
“Industrial fishing operations have no place in our protected areas.”
Mr Thorne added: “At least 30 per cent of the UK’s waters should be off-limits to all industrial fishing activity in a network of fully or highly protected marine areas.
“A good start towards achieving this would be to ban supertrawlers from fishing in our protected areas for thousands of hours every year.”
A YouGov poll of 1,664 UK voters carried out in June indicated 81 percent of them backed the idea of banning supertrawlers from MPAs.
Former UKIP MEP Mike Hookem said: “These floating fish factories catch hundreds of tons of fish a day.
“The intensity of this fishing has knock-on effects in the wider marine ecosystem and gives fish populations little room to recover and grow.
“This practice not only harms our waters but also the coastal communities who rely on a healthy fish population for their livelihood.”
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Editor-in-Chief | Carl D. Pearson has been involved in British politics and media from an early age, with the key knowledge of what it takes to run a news organisation for the 21st century. Mr Pearson, as Editor-in-chief, is responsible for supervising the daily tasks of publishing media and content to UNN’s website and various platforms.
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