Environment secretary, Steve Reed has announced plans to completely ban bottom trawling from 41 protected areas within English seas, spanning some 30,000-square-kilometres to “conserve the vulnerable underwater life” and allow the seabed to recover from the destructive practice.

The plans were revealed earlier this week in a short article written by the Labour minister in The Observer and published on the very eve of the United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France.

“Tomorrow at the UN Ocean Conference in France, I’ll announce the government’s plans to ban bottom trawling across 41 protected areas of English seas,” he wrote. Our seas will be irreversibly damaged if we don;’t act urgently. The beauty, the diversity, and abundance of our oceans is vanishing because we’ve let it happen – but it’s not too late to change course.”

The announcement follows a cross-political party report released last week, in which members of parliament in the UK urged the British government to better safeguard seas around England from the destructive fishing practice. The report – issued by the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee warned of the “government’s failure to effectively manage gaps in the network of Marine Protected Areas” in British waters, allowing damaging activities to take place and “destroy areas supposed to be safeguarded.”

In his column, Mr Reed wrote: “Bottom trawling is destroying the most vulnerable areas of our oceans. Huge chains dragging heavy nets smash through the seabed, devastating the delicate habitats that sea creatures rely on for their survival.

“No one has a greater stake in a healthy marine environment than the fishing industry. We will support it to move to more sustainable models of fishing that are better for fishing communities as well as for the health of our seas.”

The proposals – which will be announced by the British government at the UN Ocean Conference today, will be – what it has called – a ‘big step towards meeting our commitment’ to help protect 30% of the world’s ocean by 2030.

Mr Reed has also doubled-down on the government’s commitment to ratify the Global Oceans Treaty, a legislative framework to ensure “our seas remain productive and healthy for generations to come.”

Clare Brook, CEO of the ocean advocacy group, Blue Marine Foundation has called the announcement “highly encouraging and very welcome”.

“If delivered (and remember this is a consultation) it will mean that England’s offshore MPAs are at last given the protection they claim. This sort of political leadership is exactly what is needed, half way through the decade where the world needs to address urgently the climate and biodiversity crises.”

The government has – in recent years – established 178 Marine Protected Areas covering nearly 900,000-square-kilometres of English waters. However, these areas are multi-use, meaning that activities that damage the environment can take place if they do not directly impact the specified protected features.

In 2023, Oceana UK issued a report in which it estimated that over 33,000 hours of bottom trawling had taken place in offshore MPAs. In 2024, this total hit 20,000 hours. Meanwhile, only 8.6% of the ocean is currently protected, with just 2.7% of that being protected effectively.

Jonny Hughes, senior policy manager at Blue Marine Foundation, added: “Conservation policy is awash with shiny new announcements and impressive sounding targets, whereas what is needed is actual delivery. This, at first glance, seems to be about delivering conservation. We need to see the full details, but the initial reading is positive.”

Click here for more from the Oceanographic Newsroom.