Latest news with #bottomtrawling
Yahoo
23-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Public urged to back ban on destructive fishing in protected areas
Bans on destructive fishing across marine protected areas would help restore 'healthy seas' around England, conservationists have said as the Government considers the move. The Wildlife Trusts are calling on members of the public to lend their voice to support for moves to ban 'bottom trawling' – in which fishing gear is dragged across the seabed destroying habitats and scooping up a wide array of species – in protected areas of English seas. A consultation is being run by the Marine Management Organisation until September 1, which includes bans on bottom trawling in 41 offshore marine protected areas (MPAs) that have been designated thanks to the importance of their seabeds, in moves to better protect 30,000 square kilometres of sea. The call from The Wildlife Trusts to support the bans comes as polling for the charities reveals that eight out of 10 people agree that marine wildlife should be treated with the same care as species on land. The survey of more than 2,000 people by Savanta also revealed that many people did not realise bottom trawling could still take place in many protected areas – with more than a third (36%) believing an MPA designation meant all wildlife and seabeds are protected from damaging activities. Daniele Clifford, marine conservation officer for The Wildlife Trusts, said the UK's seas were full of 'incredible marine life', with habitats from cold-water corals to sandbanks, muds and chalk reefs supporting species from fish to whales, and storing huge amounts of carbon. But much of that marine life is threatened, facing pressures such as destructive fishing practices. Putting in marine protected areas was a 'tried and tested' method to help nature's recovery, but while many had been designated in British waters, they were not doing well because they were still being affected by pressures such as bottom trawling, she said. The fishing method can destroy the habitat on the seabed, and the nets 'literally sweep up everything in their path', Ms Clifford said, creating a huge amount of bycatch, besides the one or two species targeted, which is then thrown back. 'If land-based nature reserves were being bulldozed, there would be an outcry. 'And yet bottom trawling has been going on for many years in these MPAs. It's about time proper management was implemented,' she said. 'We know that when you reduce pressures on marine life, it helps support their recovery. It's possible to recover our seas, we just need to remove those pressures.' Unlike on land where active management may be required to help habitats and species recover, seas are more able to bounce back on their own if those pressures are removed, Ms Clifford said. 'You allow nature to do its thing and recover naturally. 'The benefit of this measure is our seas will recover – and we know people want healthy seas,' she said, adding restoring wildlife in MPAs had benefits for wider ocean health and fish stocks. Where bans have already been implemented in inshore MPAs, Ms Clifford said there were 'astonishingly' signs of recovery quite quickly, pointing to cold-water corals starting to recover within two to three years of restrictions in Lyme Bay, on the south coast, along with increases in scallops and lobsters. And off the coast of Sussex, largely vanished kelp beds are being helped to recover in a major marine rewilding project thanks to restrictions on bottom trawling introduced in 2021. The kelp was hit by stormy conditions in the 1980s and bottom trawling, leaving only 4% of the habitat remaining, affecting both an array of wildlife using it for shelter and food, and society which benefits from its role in reducing storm impacts and supporting fish stocks. The habitat's restoration is 'a long process,' according to George Short, kelp recovery co-ordinator for Sussex Wildlife Trust, one of the partners in the Sussex Kelp Recovery Project. 'One of the key things about our work is letting nature lead in its own recovery. 'It's been impacted for decades, it's not an overnight recovery,' she said. But nearly five years into the project, monitoring shows mussel beds – which form the hard bed on the seabed that kelp grows on – are starting to recover, as are the black sea bream once targeted by the trawling, she said.
BBC News
21-07-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Fleetwood trawlerman fears livelihood will be lost through ban
One of the last surviving commercial fishermen in a coastal town said potential bans on a type of trawling could kill off his government is proposing a ban on a "destructive" type of fishing that drags large nets along the seabed - known as "bottom trawling".John Worthington, 59, from Fleetwood, Lancashire, does not believe a ban in areas such as Morecambe Bay is needed, because the number of fishing boats has tailed off compared to previous told the Local Democracy Reporting Service if the plans go ahead to prohibit using bottom towed gear, it will force him to fish 20 miles out to sea which he said would be untenable and unsafe for his small vessels. The measures are being considered by the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) and a 12-week consultation is running until 1 Bay, where Mr Worthington fishes, is among the 42 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) being considered for the said habitats and species are at risk from damaging fishing activity and their protection and recovery will contribute to healthier marine ecosystems and support the long-term sustainability of commercial fish Worthington has two small commercial fishing vessels - a trawler and a prawner - which are under 33ft (10m).The fisherman, who has been in the trade since he was a teenager, said: "If they go ahead with this, it will force me to fish out of my area and I'll be 20 miles out. "That is too far for a small boat like mine, it isn't safe."We have already been barred from some of our existing fishing grounds and now this. How do they expect us to make a living?" The UK's National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations has pushed back on the claims of environmental impact with chief executive Mike Cohen previously saying: "Trawling does not damage most of the seabed."Trawls penetrate the sediment very little, if at all, in most areas and trawling has been carried out for well over 100 years."Mr Worthington, who is based in Jubilee Quay, is one of a handful of Fleetwood fishermen left from the once huge industry in the town, which dramatically collapsed when deep sea fishermen were banned from their traditional fishing grounds off Iceland after the final Cod War in acting chief executive Michelle Willis said: "Our latest proposals are based on draft fisheries assessments which have concluded management measures are necessary to ensure, beyond reasonable scientific doubt, that the conservation objectives of the MPAs included in the stage can be achieved." Listen to the best of BBC Radio Lancashire on Sounds and follow BBC Lancashire on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
ABC News
15-07-2025
- General
- ABC News
Lab Notes: Can bottom trawling be a sustainable way to fish?
Belinda Smith: If you've seen the recent documentary Ocean with David Attenborough... Ocean trailer: After living for nearly a hundred years on this planet, I now understand the most important place on earth is not on land, but at sea. Belinda Smith: Like me, you may have been blown away by the destruction caused by bottom trawlers. In super high resolution, we see a giant net weighted by heavy chains getting dragged quickly across the bottom of the ocean. Fish, squid, all manner of animals are scooped up and swept into the net, while the gouging chains churn up the seabed, crushing everything in their path. The documentary leaves you wondering how sustainable our appetite for seafood really is, and if anything is being done to reduce the impacts of bottom trawling. Hi, I'm Belinda Smith, and you're listening to Lab Notes, the show that dissects the science behind new discoveries and current events. To tell us about the state of bottom trawling in Australia is Denham Parker, a marine ecologist at the CSIRO. How much of the world's seafood is caught by bottom trawlers? Denham Parker: Approximately 25%, about a quarter of all seafood that is landed is landed from bottom trawling. Belinda Smith: 25%? That's a huge proportion. Denham Parker: So yes, it's a large proportion of the seafood that we have globally is derived from bottom trawling. Belinda Smith: But it hasn't always been this way. Denham Parker: So bottom trawling has been done for hundreds of years. It was really established in Europe, so it's a very old practice or form of fishing. Belinda Smith: But it's really ramped up for commercial fisheries too, hasn't it? Denham Parker: Yes, particularly around the 90s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, there was a significant increase in bottom trawling. Belinda Smith: And what spurred that increase? Denham Parker: So really, with a growing global population, seafood supplies at this point in time about 3 billion people with a form of nutrients and protein. Belinda Smith: Australia is no exception. We eat on average around 14 kilograms of seafood each year. That's about twice as much lamb as the average Australian eats annually. So what species are fished by bottom trawling in Australian waters? Denham Parker: The common ones in Australia is prawns. So we have a variety of prawn trawl fisheries. As you go south, you get trawlers that tend to target more fin fish, species like ling, grenadier, gummy shark, etc. Now Belinda Smith: Attenborough's latest and probably his last documentary was a really damning critique into the practice of bottom trawling. Was any of that criticism warranted, do you think? Denham Parker: So as someone who has a real passion for the ocean and as someone who has studied the ocean for a very long time, particularly fisheries, I was really excited to know that David Attenborough was making a documentary on oceans. It was great, to be honest, very hard hitting. But obviously there's limitations in terms of that sort of documentary making in terms of it needs to be entertaining as well as it needs to be in a relatively short period of time. So there are limitations as to what can be said. I suppose what I felt was there wasn't enough information as to the hard work that's gone into trying to improve bottom trawling in terms of sustainability and in terms of bycatch reduction and in terms of mitigating seabed destruction. So in the early stages of trawling, it was very destructive. A lot of work has gone into ensuring that mitigating that destructive side of trawling as much as possible. Belinda Smith: Yeah, okay. Let's talk about that destruction and how it can be mitigated, starting with bycatch. The Attenborough documentary says up to three quarters of what's dragged out of the ocean by bottom trawlers is bycatch. Denham Parker: What is very clear is that there's a large variation amongst trawlers as to what bycatch and that's largely to do with what they're targeting. So in general, trawlers that target smaller species such as prawn have higher bycatch than trawlers that target larger fish species. And that's simply got to do with the mesh size of the net that they trawl. And if you're targeting smaller species, that mesh size needs to be smaller. And as a result, you generally tend to catch more bycatch. Belinda Smith: Is there anything being done to minimise bycatch? Denham Parker: There are a number of measures that you can employ within the fisheries. And I think this is really where Australia has done a lot of research into ensuring that bycatch is kept to a minimal. One of the things that you do is all Australian trawl fisheries have a bycatch and discard work plan. These things include gear modifications. So in general, we talk about bycatch reduction devices. And essentially, these are different sort of gear modifications to the net, which help or aid any unwanted species to escape. So this can be anything from a portion of the net that is a different shape or larger mesh size to let animals escape. They have fish eyes, which are essentially a little escape slot in the top of the net. And then this reduction devices for larger animals, such as turtle exclusion devices, which is something that's been really successfully implemented in Australia. Belinda Smith: I guess that's one of the sort of more enduring images of documentaries, right? Seeing the poor old turtles, they always get caught up in fishing nets and things like trawlers are no exception. So how would a trawler turtle exclusion device work? Denham Parker: What it is essentially is a grate, a metal bar grate that's put into the net and angled slightly upwards. So as all the animals get kind of flushed into the net, the target species can pass through those bars. But large animals like turtles will hit up against that bar and will be forced upwards to the top of the net. And then at the top of the net, there is essentially a flap. So an escape little hole that the turtle can then pop out of and escape unharmed. So these are implemented in the late 1980s, early 1990s across a lot of the trawl fisheries in Australia. And having a look at the history of these fisheries, we see that in the northern prawn fishery, for example, there were 5,700 turtle interactions in late 1980s. And then in 2020, that was decreased down to less than 70 interactions. Of that, only five mortality. So things like turtle exclusion devices, which have been developed over time with scientists as well as with the industry, they really have quite a lasting impact in terms of bycatch reduction. Belinda Smith: The other big environmental concern, of course, is the trail of destruction a bottom trawling net can leave in its wake. Denham Parker: Yes, obviously the interaction of trawling with the seabed does modify and disturb the habitat. One of the methods in which we try to mitigate that interaction is by ensuring that the gear that is towed is as light as possible so that it really doesn't penetrate deep into the seabed. So the points of contact are as few as possible and if possible, include things like rollers with rubber so that that interaction is minimised as much as possible. Belinda Smith: The seabed is a good carbon store and that carbon accumulates as dead animals and plants and their waste sink to the bottom of the ocean. But when trawlers come through, they disturb that carbon and it can be released into the atmosphere. So how much carbon does get released? Denham Parker: That's a very complex and difficult question to answer. The reason it's so complex is because it really lies at an intersect between understanding the carbon cycle, understanding the seabed, biota and understanding fishery science. There have been attempts to answer it. However, those attempts and the assumptions that they made in their model in terms of trying to quantify the carbon that is released as a result of trawling have been questioned. Like I said, not an easy thing to do. With Belinda Smith: this potential for carbon release as well as habitat destruction, how much of Australia's oceans are bottom trawled? Denham Parker: Australia has done a lot of work in mapping the seabeds and understanding where sensitive habitats lie and understanding where the trawl footprint lies relative to that. You'll be surprised to know that in recent years, the trawl footprint is only about 1.1% of Australia's economic exclusive zone. Belinda Smith: The economic exclusive zone being the area of ocean around 370 kilometres from the coastline where Australia has exclusive rights to do activities like bottom trawling. So how does that 1.1% compare to other regions? Denham Parker: There was a global research paper written that looked into a similar sort of trawl footprints across 24 regions in the world. What that found was that the average trawl footprint within an EZ is about 14% and on the higher sides of it in areas like the Mediterranean and the Adriatic Sea, it exceeded 50%. Belinda Smith: Really? Oh my gosh. Yeah, right. That's huge. Denham Parker: So in that sense, Australia is doing really well in that it is probably one of the world leaders in understanding spatial management and understanding where your sensitive habitats lie through mapping and where your trawling footprint is and ensuring that those two don't overlap. I think another important statistic is that 54.8% of Australia's EZ is actually protected from trawling. Belinda Smith: After an area has been trawled, how long does it take to recover? Denham Parker: That's an interesting question and that largely depends on the ecosystem that was there prior. Belinda Smith: So for say a seagrass meadow versus a coral reef, would one bounce back faster than the other? Denham Parker: Yeah, again, one would bounce back faster than the other, but it's not as simple. It also depends on the environment health outside of simply just the impact of trawling. A lot of those sort of questions can only be answered with experimental design where you really would have a trawled area that otherwise or later becomes a marine protected area and you would be able to monitor the bounce back then. Belinda Smith: Considering that bottom trawling is needed to meet our appetite for seafood, is there a way of doing it sustainably and how can we consumers know? Denham Parker: Yes, there is a way of bottom trawling sustainably and in fact there are a number of bottom trawl fisheries that are considered to be sustainable at this point. So globally I think there's approximately 70 bottom trawl fisheries that are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council, the MSC certification. Belinda Smith: The MSC is an independent body that checks if a fishery is operating sustainably, both in terms of the species they're fishing and their impact on their ecosystems. Denham Parker: As a consumer, if you're looking to make informed choices in terms of sustainability for your seafood that puts on your plate, look for the MSC green tick label on products. In terms of Australia, I think there's approximately 25 MSC certified fisheries, of that around eight are bottom trawl fisheries. Belinda Smith: Right, okay. It seems like a fairly low proportion of the total number of trawl fisheries out there. How do you get more people to think sustainably? Denham Parker: I suppose how you can force fisheries to become more sustainable is through government interventions, right? So like I said, Australia is really a world leader in terms of fisheries management because there is this interaction between researchers, governments and fishermen themselves. Belinda Smith: Ultimately, making fishing practices as sustainable as possible is a win for both the environment and the people fishing, a point also made in the Attenborough documentary. The fishermen are Denham Parker: not against sustainability. In fact, they're absolutely for sustainability. They realise that their investment is in the ocean and it's best that they conserve their investment as much as possible. We test a lot of mitigation devices with industry, so they take them out themselves and test them and collect data for us and we bring that back and see which are efficient and which are not. It's really that interaction that really helps us understand each fishery as an individual and how we need to or what we need to do to improve that fishery sustainability. Belinda Smith: That was Denham Parker, a marine ecologist at the CSIRO. Thanks for listening to Lab Notes on ABC Radio National, where every week we dissect the science behind new discoveries and current events. I'm Belinda Smith. This episode was produced on the lands of the Wurundjeri and Menang Noongar people. Fiona Pepper's the producer and it was mixed by Tim James. We'll catch you next week. You've been listening to an ABC podcast.
Yahoo
02-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Green Focus: Arran is a great example of how we can save our seabeds
My family holidays in the 1950s were spent in the far northwest of Scotland, writes Henry Haslam. There was a pier beside the hotel, and trawlers used to come in to unload their catch of fish. We didn't give any thought, in those days, to the damage that trawling might do to the seabed. Perhaps the damage was slight, the ships were small, and the sea floor had plenty of opportunity to recover. In more recent years, however, the damage done by bottom trawlers and dredgers has been much more serious, as demonstrated in the recent David Attenborough film, Ocean. Bottom trawling breaks up the seabed, destroying corals and shellfish. However, marine life can recover remarkably quickly if it is left to thrive. Some time ago, a group of fishermen on the island of Arran resolved to set up a protection zone. After many years of planning, a one-square-mile no-take zone was established in 2008. A larger zone, covering 100 square miles, was set up in 2014, banning bottom trawling and dredging. The recovery has been remarkable. Lobsters, crabs, sponges, and scallops have all re-established themselves, and fish stocks are recovering. The sea floor recovers much more quickly than the land does. All this was achieved because a few local fishermen got together. Arran became a model for marine preservation. That is not all. After the release of the film, the UK government announced plans to ban bottom trawling in 41 marine protected areas, and a recent international conference in Nice ratified a treaty that aims to protect 30 per cent of the world's oceans by 2030. We can see here a good example of the part that can be played by a local community, and by national governments, and by international agreements.
Times
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Video of seagrass devastation cut from Attenborough documentary
Filmmakers cut footage of fishing boats destroying seagrass meadows from Sir David Attenborough's Ocean film because it was deemed too shocking. Previously unseen video was shown to a small number of people at the recent UN ocean summit in Nice, revealing seagrass in the Turkish Mediterranean being affected by bottom trawling. The video shows huge plumes of sediment being thrown up as a weighted net smashes through the grass, a vital habitat for spawning fish. The Turkish conservationist and filmmaker Zafer Kizilkaya, who worked with the Ocean team, said he wanted to include the scenes in the film but they decided it was too disturbing. 'That footage I showed, that was the one that we decided to take out of the documentary. You know, it was a bit too harsh for the public,' Kizilkaya told The Times. 'I've been going out with trawlers for so long. But seeing that damage … before your eyes is a totally different thing. This is killing an entire deep-sea ecosystem.' Attenborough's film is thought to have played a key role in the government's decision last month to ban bottom trawling in around half the territory of marine protected areas (MPAs) in England. Celebrities including Stephen Fry and the White Lotus actor Theo James have called for a full ban on the destructive fishing practice in MPAs. Ocean, which was released in cinemas and on Disney+ in June, includes underwater footage of bottom trawling in the Mediterranean and in UK waters. However, the scene of seagrass being ploughed was cut. The footage was filmed in Turkish waters at an undisclosed location. The team did not know the seagrass was there until they retrieved the footage, as it was 27 metres underwater. Kizilkaya said the Mediterranean seagrass (Posidonia oceanica) would take a long time to recover because it grew slowly, at about 2cm a year. The damage to the habitat is bad news for fish, which use it as a nursery for their young, and for tackling climate change. 'Scientific papers have proven that it's the plant on the planet having the highest capacity of carbon storage, which is about eight kilograms per square meter, ten times higher than rainforests,' Kizilkaya said. Sophie Benbow, marine director at conservation group Fauna & Flora, who saw the footage in Nice, said: 'It's a lose-lose-lose for wildlife, the climate and for all of us who rely on a healthy ocean for our survival.' Kizilkaya said the public could play a key role in stopping bottom trawling by asking fishmongers and restaurants about where they sourced their fish and seafood. 'In a month, we can stop the whole bottom trawling industry. It's all about the end consumer,' he said. The UK government is consulting on the ban on bottom trawling in 41 of the country's 377 MPAs, but is facing a fierce pushback from fishing trade bodies. 'This ban will cause huge hardship to fishermen and their families and it will advance the cause of marine conservation no more than a far more targeted restriction would do,' the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations claimed in a blogpost. 'This is an astonishing attack on fishermen and coastal communities.' Seagrass species can be found in UK waters and several conservation efforts are under way to restore meadows.
