Bite Back: Protect our seas

Written by staff reporter Thursday, 05 March 2009 00:00

John Nightingale

After years of delay, the Marine Bill has finally been included in the latest Queen’s speech. Now the government has the opportunity to create a coherent plan for how to use and, most importantly, how to protect our seas after decades of misuse and overfishing. To do that, they will need to recognise that the seas around Britain belong to us all, not just to the commercial fishermen, developers, mineral extractors and others who make money from it.

If a business makes money from the sea and damages it in the process, then the onus should be on the business to make good that damage. Instead, we see a fishing industry that has tried to circumvent every attempt to limit the overfishing and the collateral damage from such destructive methods as bottom trawling, scallop dredging and pair fishing. Any measure that tries to allow fish stocks time to recover has been met by cries of ‘you’re destroying our industry’. The truth is that with 39 out of the 48 fish stocks found around our coasts now in a bad state and nearly two dozen of our marine species facing total extinction, the commercial fishing industry is doing a good job of destroying its own livelihood as well as our heritage.

The only effective method of protection is to create a whole series of marine reserves, areas where commercial fishing is simply not allowed. Our one tiny marine reserve at Lundy has now been a no-take zone for five years, and the latest survey has shown a habitat that is once again starting to bloom. Many species are recovering well, with species such as lobster showing a significant increase in numbers as well as size, clearly demonstrating just how effective such a policy can be. It is not only the site itself that is recovering; we now know that the benefit has spread to surrounding areas.

Bear in mind that in the UK there are 22 marine vertebrates on the Red List of threatened species, compared with just three threatened terrestrial vertebrates; yet there are 6,000 Sites of Special Scientific Interest on land, but just three underwater. Time to redress the balance, methinks.

The government is proposing Marine Conservation Zones, but how many, where they site them, whether they will exclude commercial fishing and who they will take their advice from are all unknown. Governments have a habit of following the money and the votes, but this issue is too important for us to let that happen. Go to http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/commons/l/ and tap in your postcode, and it will give you the name of your MP and his or her email address. Please ask your MPs to use their influence to ensure that the forthcoming bill provides a comprehensive network of marine reserves.