Sustainability

"Urgent action needed" to stem UK crab and lobster declines

The Marine Conservation Society has called upon the UK Government to address the continued and increasing threat to crab and lobster populations following this season's update to the Good Fish Guide.

09/10/2024
Written by Rob Hutchins
Photographs by Sam Mansfield

Updates this autumn to the Marine Conservation Society’s Good Fish Guide have prompted serious concern over the continued and increasing decline in domestic crab and lobster populations, listing the species among nearly 30 to have moved down the Guide’s sustainability scale this season.

While remaining at an overall ‘amber’ level – indicating ‘okay but with improvements needed’ – crab fisheries across Northumberland, Kent and Essex, Southern, Isle of Scilly, and Devon have each received a lower score in this autumn’s update, prompting calls for ‘urgent government action’ from the UK ocean membership charity.

Out of the 146 ratings the Good Fish Guide has updated this autumn, 29 species have now been moved down the sustainability scale while 93 have remained the same as the season prior. This season, only ten species have seen an improved level of sustainability.

Among the ratings to have been scientifically updated this season, the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has reviewed its figures for crab and lobster caught in both England and Wales. The Good Fish Guide now includes 26 ratings for brown crab and 28 ratings for European lobster caught in UK seas. 

“We are really concerned about the picture of crab and lobster across the UK,” said Kenneth Bodles, head of innovative conservation at the Marine Conservation Society, the UK’s leading ocean membership charity. 

“If managed well, crab and lobster could be a flagship species for sustainable fishing in the UK, supporting local people whose communities have been built on fishing. Crab and lobster fisheries are doing well in some areas, but we need the UK government to adopt similar management measures across the UK.”

Covering seafood sold or produced in the UK, the guide offers a traffic light system to help consumers and businesses make sustainable seafood choices depending on where and how a species is caught or farmed.

Green rated species are the ‘best choice’ most sustainable options; amber is an ‘OK choice’ but improvements are needed; while red indicates unsustainable ‘fish to avoid.’ Currently the UK has only one green-rated crab fishery (located in Shetland) and one green-rated lobster fishery (located in Jersey). Both are examples, the MCS suggests, of “what sustainable practices could look like across the UK.”

Typically, shellfish are caught in a process through which baited pots, traps, or creels are lowered onto the seafloor for attracted crabs and lobster to crawl inside before being hauled back up to the surface. According to the ocean charity, such practices have the potential to become some of the ‘most sustainable ways of catching seafood’ as fishers can choose which catch they land and be more selective when it comes to protecting young and breeding shellfish.

However, while some areas of the UK have local limits on how many pots can be used, there is at present no national regulation on pot numbers or how many crab and lobster can be caught at a time set by the government. Similarly, a boat can carry and set anything from dozens to hundreds of pots at a time, depending on its size. 

In December last year, the UK Government published its Fisheries Management Plan (FMP) for crab and lobster to assess the status of stocks, set out policies to restore stocks, and maintain them at sustainable levels. According to the MCS, however, it remains ‘unclear how the FMP’s long term vision to achieve sustainable management of crab and lobster fisheries will be achieved and by what timescale.’

“The Good Fish Guide shows us we need better management measures for these fisheries right across the UK,” said Alice Moore, Good Fish Guide manager at the Marine Conservation Society. “The Fisheries Management Plan set out by the UK government is welcome, but it doesn’t currently go far enough in specifying the measures and timescales needed to effectively restore populations of crab and lobster.

“The examples of the crab fishery in Shetland and lobster in Jersey provide evidence that better management can achieve sustainable fishing and still allow populations to thrive.”

A report published by Greenpeace International in July this year highlighted the extent to which global fisheries management had failed over the last 70 years. 

Titled Un-tangled: How the Global Ocean Treaty can help repair high seas mismanagement, the report detailed how Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) have failed to manage global overfishing since their emergence, resulting in 35.4% of all assessed fish stocks now being severely overfished.

RFMOs are composed of nation states and exist to sustainably manage fishing and its impact in international waters. 

The same report sets out how the Global Ocean Treaty – adopted in June 2023 – can address the current ocean crisis with tools that “go beyond the narrow sectoral approach, and work with RFMOs to remedy this broken status quo.”

Reshima Sharma, political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said at the time of the report’s release: “Before the end of this year, the incoming government needs to sign the treaty into UK law to kickstart ocean protection on a global scale and fix the broken system.

“The new government should immediately cement the UK’s position as a global leader on ocean protection and help protect at least 30% of the world’s ocean before the end of this decade.”

For more from our Ocean Newsroom, click here

 

Written by Rob Hutchins
Photographs by Sam Mansfield

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