Organisations will target fishing practices such as bottom trawling in Europe’s Marine Protected Areas
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Eleven environmental agencies are set to come together to ensure that laws protecting marine ecosystems are upheld, taking action against destructive fishing in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) across Europe.
The arrival of the new coalition comes one year after environmental organisations filed landmark legal complaints against six EU Member States – Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain – for allowing destructive fishing inside MPAs. These complaints have yet to be acted upon.
Around 4.4 million hours of bottom trawling took place inside MPAs across seven EU countries between 2015 and 2023 – equivalent to more than 500 years’ worth of trawling.
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The new coalition will call on the European Commission to initiate infringement proceedings against several member states that currently fail to comply with their legal obligations to protect marine ecosystems.
‘Given the European Commission’s new political drive to reduce administrative burdens, prohibiting destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling in EU MPAs provides a clear and straightforward rule for all EU fishers, which would greatly simplify and reduce the costs of monitoring and implementation,’ said the MPA Legal Coalition in a statement.
‘By connecting national legal action into a single, coordinated European strategy, the coalition is building a wave of accountability that no government can ignore,’ the MPA Legal Coalition continued. ‘The MPA Legal Coalition exists to ensure that Europe’s protected seas are protected in practice, not just on paper.’
The launch of the coalition comes at a pivotal moment for EU ocean policy. Recently, a Dutch court ruled against unpermitted bottom trawling in the Dogger Bank, also known as the ‘nursery of the North Sea’, and there were victories in France – highlighting how legal action can bring about significant change.
By 2030, the EU has pledged to protect at least 30 per cent of its seas under its own biodiversity strategy. Still, 93 per cent of Europe’s marine ecosystems are impacted by human pressures, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).
An Oceana study found that 86 per cent of the area designated under Natura 2000 to protect marine habitats is impacted by destructive fishing, including bottom trawling.
Bottom trawling is especially destructive, as it involves dragging large, heavy nets across extensive areas of the seafloor to catch fish that live near the bottom of the ocean. The impacts can be far-reaching: from noise pollution that disrupts animals that rely on sound to hunt for food to coral reefs being destroyed, affecting the complex food webs of marine ecosystems.
