| UPDATED: 17:24, Tue, Jan 12, 2021
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The environmental campaigners have regularly pushed for restrictions on the huge ships, including the Dutch-flagged Margiris, particularly in relation to specially designated Marine Protection Areas (MPAs), while Prime Minister Boris Johnson has also signalled that he was keen to see the vessels excluded now the UK has quit the bloc and is no longer subject to the Common Fisheries Policy. And Sir John, a prominent member of the eurosceptic European Research Group (ERG), which was instrumental in delivering Brexit, used Twitter to make a similar p
A coalition of more than 50 countries has committed to protect almost a third of the planet by 2030 to halt the destruction of the natural world and slow extinctions of wildlife. The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People, which includes the UK and countries from six continents, made the pledge to protect at least 30% of the planet’s land and oceans before the One Planet summit in Paris on Monday, hosted by the French president,.
UK cannot take back control
of waters from super trawlers
Conservative MPs have urged the Government to ban the huge boats from fishing in Britain s waters
9 January 2021 • 6:00pm
The Margiris has been banned by Australia but the Government has admitted that it cannot similarly ban large EU ships
Credit: Greenpeace United Kingdom/Saf Suleyman
Supertrawlers will be free to plunder Britain s waters after Brexit, government sources have admitted, as they do not have the powers to implement a blanket ban.
Government sources said that they cannot exclude these boats altogether , and can only currently legislate in terms of the type of fishing they do.
| UPDATED: 09:07, Wed, Jan 6, 2021
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Dr Jean-Luc Solandt, principle specialist in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) at the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), has called for increased legal protection for Britain’s seabed. The MPAs have given special status from fishing because of the ecological importance of the seabed. It follows a report from the MCS that pointed out EU boats operating in all but one of the UK’s MPAs.
Seabed-damaging trawling is still taking place in protected areas, campaigners said
6 January 2021 • 12:01am
A trawler fishes within a marine protected area in the North Sea last year
Credit: Suzanne Plunkett /Greenpeace United Kingdom
Ineffectual EU protection for marine conservation areas must be beefed up post Brexit, campaigners say, as it emerges they are being targeted by trawlers.
The fishing boats operate in all but one offshore marine protected area designed to protect the seabed in UK waters, research has found, as scientists say the practice is damaging a valuable carbon store that could help attain climate goals.
Figures compiled by the Marine Conservation Society show that bottom trawling took place in 98 per cent of offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in UK waters between 2015 and 2018, which have been identified as needing protection due to the ecological importance of their seabeds.