Discussion gets lively when it comes to ‘bottom trawling’ and few punches were pulled when NGO representatives sat down in the weeks preceding COP16 to discuss the validity of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and inter-governmental advances on the 30×30 targets.

This proved to be the case, in particular, among those speaking at this year’s Blue Earth Summit.

‘Paper playgrounds’ is how many commentators have described the level of protections afforded to designated marine reserves; a term used in reference to the extractive fishing practices such as bottom trawling that are still being permitted within them by many EU nations.

And while those nation’s leaders convene at COP16 in Cali, Colombia to discuss their advances on 30×30 targets – an agreed target to conserve and restore 30% of land and water by 2030 – there’s a firmly held belief among many of the ocean-protection camps that, under current standards of protection offered such areas, many a nation’s declared MPAs ‘aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.’

So, when those same NGOs stick their heads well and truly above the parapet to hold governments to account, it’s quite understandable that shockwaves of appreciation are felt among the ocean-going communities.    

ClientEarth and Oceana are some such organisations. Working together to continue their fight against bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas, the pair are filing new legal action against the Spanish government after it was discovered that this “brutal and destructive” fishing practice is taking place in many of the MPAs in Spanish waters, violating not just EU law but national conservation law, too.

General awareness of the impact bottom trawling has on marine habitats is gradually growing and laws have been made in an attempt to stem the damage caused by such activities within certain MPAs.

The process itself has been described by representatives of Oceana as “brutal” for its method of dragging heavy nets along the seabed to catch marine species that live there. By its nature, ‘trawling’ has a high rate of bycatch of marine life – including sharks, cold water corals, sponges and other organisms. It’s also been found to have a sizeable impact upon the ocean’s ability to store carbon.

While EU law forbids such practice in some MPAs, the Spanish government has been ‘flouting these rules’ by allowing for bottom trawling in MPAs in its Atlantic and Mediterranean waters. These areas have been designated for protection because they contain vulnerable seabed ecosystems and the home to such protected as the loggerhead turtle, bottlenose dolphin, and other marine mammals.

“These areas are meant to be protected as they’re essential to biodiversity and climate protection,” said Francesco Maletto, a marine conservation lawyer at ClientEarth. “EU rules are in place to ensure their protection. But Spain is violating the law by allowing destructive bottom trawling in these areas. By doing so, they’re putting the most vulnerable habitats and wildlife under real threat. We’re taking the issue to court to ensure that ‘protected’ truly means ‘protected’.”

Earlier this year, both ClientEarth and Oceana filed administrative requests to demand Spain repeal two resolutions authorising trawling in the MPAs in question. Having received no response, the pair has now escalated the claim by filing a lawsuit with the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid. Meanwhile, the practice of trawling within an area containing vital ecosystems that can contribute to fighting climate change and restore biodiversity loss, continues.

“We’re taking the Spanish government to court for decades of inaction on Marine Protected Areas,” said Michael Sealey, senior policy advisor at Oceana in Europe. “The European Commission set the objective of banning bottom trawling in MPAs by 2030, but progress is too slow. We have no other choice but to use judicial powers to enforce EU law and protect what needs to be protected.

“We call on the new von der Leyen Commission to ban destructive fishing in all EU MPAs now, and to position the EU as a global champion on ocean protection.”

Spain is far from the only nation allowing bottom trawling to continue in its protected waters and a positive court ruling here could have far-reaching consequences for MPAs across the EU as well as for marine conservation objectives the world over.

At a global level, conservation groups have been calling on governments to tighten the regulations around various, extractive and destructive fishing practices that are allowed to continue within areas of protected marine space. Such groups in South Africa recently called plans for expanded MPAs across the areas homing its population of African penguin as “biologically meaningless” for failing to enforce restriction levels that could rescue the seabird from the brink of extinction.

Last month, ClientEarth filed a separate lawsuit against France for allowing bottom trawling in Mediterranean MPAs, while Oceana, ClientEarth, and Seas at Risk are supporting other legal cases in Germany and the Netherlands, finding the issue to extend beyond national borders to be “systemic across European MPAs.”

New research has labeled over 80% of current MPAs as “ineffective” for providing only marginal protection against destructive industrial activities such as bottom trawling. 

Greece and Sweden have both announced they will ban or ‘strongly restrict’ bottom trawling in their Marine Protected Areas, while closer to home, the Scottish government proposed this summer to implement trawling bans in 20 MPAs.

According to the executive director of Oceana UK Hugo Tagholm, it’s suspected that Scottish offshore MPAs were subjected to almost 6,000 hours of bottom trawling last year.

Speaking on the subject with The National, Tagholm said: “The truth is, bottom trawling is brutal. So-called protected areas are decimated, as the living seabed is destroyed and along with it vital refuges for wildlife and the foundations of ocean health.

“From ancient corals to rare sharks – almost nothing escapes the weighted nets.”

Sentiments such as these that were voiced at large by those acting for ocean conservation at London’s Blue Earth Summit earlier this month. It’s the prevailing belief that, as nations discuss protection targets at this year’s United Nations’ Biodiversity Conference, COP16, there “simply cannot be any milestones reached while bottom trawling persists.”

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