Fishing Vessels: Marine Environment

(asked on 17th June 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what assessment his Department has made of the proportion of (a) UK and (b) global waters which have been damaged by bottom trawling and supertrawlers.


Answered by
Victoria Prentis Portrait
Victoria Prentis
Attorney General
This question was answered on 22nd June 2021

The impacts of all fishing activities are considered when we assess the status of UK seas and set targets to achieve Good Environmental Status (GES) under the UK Marine Strategy. Our last assessment (2019) showed that pressure and disturbance caused by fishing activities occurs to some degree in 57% of habitats in UK waters.

Work is currently underway to update Part Three of the UK Marine Strategy, which sets out the programmes and measures we are taking in our waters to help us move towards or maintain GES. Included as part of these measures will be the new Fisheries Act which now allows UK Authorities to manage fishing activity in our waters and will help to achieve the UK’s vision of a clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse ocean and seas.

The IPBES 2019 Global Assessment shows us that human activities have had alarge and widespread impact on the ocean. Globally, direct exploitation of organisms in particular overexploitation of fish, shellfish and other organisms, has had the largest relative impact on biodiversity. An increasing proportion of marine fish stocks are overfished, and industrial fishing covers at least 55% of the ocean. Coastal habitats, including estuaries and deltas critical for marine biota and regional economies, havebeen severely affected by sea-use changes, including bottom trawling.

Evidence indicates that effective protection of at least 30% of the global ocean can help in reversing these adverse ecological impacts, preserve fish populations, increase resilience to climate change, and sustain long-term ocean health. That is why, in addition to protecting 38% of the UK’s own waters in Marine Protected Areas, the UK is co-leading global alliances in support of a target to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030 (‘the 30by30 target’). Under UK leadership, over 80 countries have now committed to support the adoption of this target at Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP15, due to be held in October 2021.

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