Labour urged to behave to cease damaging and harmful sort of fishing | UK | News | EUROtoday

Damaging fishing practices resembling backside trawling – dragging a web throughout the seabed to catch fish – ought to be banned in sure protected areas of England’s waters, Labour has been warned. MPs have referred to as on ministers to ban actions that injury the seabed, which additionally embody dredging and mining, in offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).

The Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) stated it was “concerned the protection of the ocean is not demonstrably a priority for the Government”. Toby Perkins, chairman of the EAC, stated: “UK waters are teeming with complex ecosystems that are not only precious in their own right but also critical to sustaining the delicate balance of marine life. Ministers must ensure that Marine Protected Areas live up to their name.

“Activities with the potential to seriously damage marine environments, such as bottom trawling, risk slipping through the regulatory net. While such activities do not need to be banned everywhere, in areas where marine life is most at threat we need to take more advanced action.”

The Government has in recent times established 178 MPAs overlaying almost 900,000 sq. kilometres of English waters.

But these areas are multi-use, that means that actions that injury the setting can happen if they don’t straight influence the desired protected options.

Mr Perkins stated: “Ministers have all the information they need to press ahead with banning bottom trawling in the offshore protected areas where it presents the most risk.

“Why the delay? Our oceans cannot afford any more prevarication. It is time to act. Doing so would send a clear signal ahead of this month’s UN Oceans Conference that the UK is serious about protecting valuable ecosystems in our waters.

“So too would bringing forward a long overdue update to the UK’s Marine Policy Statement, to outline how the Government will balance exploiting our marine resources with protecting them, and setting out a timeline for ratifying the Global Ocean Treaty, taking us one step closer to real protection for marine life in the high seas.”

The Government has been contacted for remark.