‘A sham’

UK marine protected areas suffer over 20,000 hours of suspected bottom trawling

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Published: May 20, 2025
This Article was written by: Katie Hill - My Green Pod
fishing, marine conservation, marine life, marine protection, MPAs, nature, oceans, policy

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Main image: © OCEANA Juan Cuetos

The UK’s offshore marine protected areas (MPAs) suffered over 20,000 hours of suspected bottom-trawl fishing last year, which would score tracks on the sea bed reaching over eight times around the UK, a new Oceana report has revealed.

Bottom trawling is permitted in 90% of UK MPAs, making the network little more than a sham that does not do enough to protect nature, says Oceana.

What are bottom trawlers?

Bottom trawlers are large, fuel-intensive vessels that drag heavy metal gear and nets – often weighing several tonnes – across the seafloor, indiscriminately hoovering up sea life and effectively bulldozing marine habitats.

Almost all seabed habitats around the UK are currently categorised as ‘poor status’, with bottom trawling identified as the main pressure.

Which countries are trawling?

According to Oceana UK’s report, The Trawled Truth, only 38 of the UK’s 377 MPAs are fully protected by law from destructive bottom trawling.

Satellite tracking data shows that offshore MPAs alone suffered over 20,600 hours of suspected bottom trawling in 2024.

A mix of countries were responsible for the suspected trawling, Oceana found, with French vessels assigned to 55% of the tracked hours and UK vessels 19%.

The remaining fishing was split into small shares between a wider group of states.

These results are an underestimation of the scale of the damage, says Oceana. The analysis excludes inshore MPAs, and Norwegian vessels could not be included due to a lack of information on their fishing gear.

Most exploited MPAs

The three most exploited MPAs were off the coast of Cornwall and Scotland and suffered a combined 8,597 hours of suspected bottom trawling.

The Western Channel and Southwest Deeps (East) MPAs off Cornwall are home to wildlife ranging from cat sharks to cuckoo rays to threatened fan mussels.

The West of Scotland MPA boasts delicate, slow-growing corals, orange roughy, which can live for 150 years and spawning areas of the commercially important blue ling.

‘Bottom trawling is devastating our seas. Across our ‘protected’ havens for nature, weighted nets are clear-felling the forests of the ocean and butchering our marine wildlife wholesale. The UK currently has the worst of all worlds: the illusion of protection masking ongoing destruction.

‘Unless the government takes action, our marine protected areas will remain a sham. Last year, shadow Environment Secretary Steve Reed claimed that if elected he would act to stop this destruction – so what’s the delay? Our seas need more than empty promises.’

ALYX ELLIOTT
Campaigns director of Oceana UK

Trawling ban boon

Banning trawling in MPAs would be a win-win-win for nature, small-scale fishers and the taxpayer.

The benefits for the fishing industry, tourism, climate regulation and other services provided by a healthy ocean worth a net gain of £2.57-3.5 billion over 20 years could be delivered by a ban in the UK’s offshore seabed MPAs alone, previous research has estimated.

A ban also has strong public backing: according to polling carried out for Oceana, eight in 10 UK adults think that bottom trawling should be banned in MPAs. 64% mistakenly believe that this is already the case.

Patchy protection

So far, the UK government’s limited measures to manage bottom trawling in MPAs have centred around restrictions only for specific ‘features’, such as reefs.

This isolates fragments of habitat and forestalls any real chance of regeneration and recovery, threatening the UK’s commitment to protecting 30% of land and sea by 2030.

‘Safeguarding marine protected areas from bottom trawling and dredging would have wide ranging and substantial benefits for society. It would help boost marine biodiversity and the abundance of commercial species inside and outside these areas, as well as helping to mitigate climate change.

‘Banning trawling across the entirety of these sites, rather than for limited features, is especially important, since it would allow these ecosystems to rejuvenate, rather than maintaining the current poor condition.’

DR EMMA SHEEHAN
Associate Professor of Marine Ecology, University of Plymouth

The value of protecting the entirety of each marine protected area should not be underestimated. Oceana’s report cites the example of Lyme Bay, England, where partial ‘features’ protection saw an increase in abundance of marine life of 15%, but in areas where the whole site was free of trawling, that figure was 95%.

Whole-site bans are also three times cheaper to enforce according to Scottish Government estimates, the report highlights.

The UK government had committed to introducing laws to protect MPAs from bottom trawling before the end of 2024, but this deadline has been missed and no new date has been set.