Ocean advocates launch ‘Protect Our Catch’, a European campaign, urging French President Macron and the EU to end destructive fishing such as bottom trawling in marine protected areas
Press Release Date: February 5, 2025
Location: Belgium
Contact:
Emily Fairless, Communications Officer | email: efairless@oceana.org | tel.: +32 478 038 490
Protect Our Catch is a new European campaign supported by leading ocean advocates BLOOM, Blue Marine Foundation, Empesca’t, Environmental Justice Foundation, Oceana, Only One, Seas At Risk and Tara Ocean Foundation, in collaboration with fishers, that joins hundreds of thousands of citizen activists is calling on European leaders to ban destructive fishing such as bottom trawling in marine protected areas (MPAs). In so doing, it confronts two critical and related issues: supporting the future of small-scale fishing while protecting and restoring marine ecosystems.
In letters sent this week to French president, Emmanuel Macron and EU Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans, Costas Kadis, the campaign has said that without urgent action on destructive fishing methods such as bottom trawling, Europe’s supposed marine protected areas risk being stripped of marine life, with devastating consequences for small-scale fishers, biodiversity and the fight against climate change.
Bottom trawling, a destructive fishing method in which heavy nets are dragged along the seabed, continues to devastate marine ecosystems and biodiversity, even in supposed marine protected areas (MPAs) – a designated region of the ocean where human activity is managed or restricted to safeguard resources and ecosystems. Among fishing practices, bottom trawling is the leading contributor of CO2 release through heavy fuel consumption and disturbance of marine sediments, and has an impact on small-scale fishers and local economies, putting coastal communities in jeopardy.
In June 2022, President Macron said that the world must “set ambitious goals for biodiversity and especially for the ocean.” However, addressing the French president, the campaign argues the country has failed to make any “meaningful progress” on banning destructive fishing practices such as bottom trawling in its protected areas, a stance that threatens France’s claim to be a steward of the ocean.
The Protect Our Catch campaign believes that as host of the United Nations Ocean Conference in June – a historical and decisive moment for the ocean – and as Europe’s leading maritime power, France must live up to its responsibilities and put an end to this hypocrisy by implementing real MPAs. Doing so would create critical momentum for other European member states to do the same, aligned to recent action by Sweden to ban bottom trawling in their national MPAs.
Simultaneously, the campaign has urged EU leadership in the Parliament and Commission – including Commissioner Kadis —to double down on enforcement of existing EU regulations, especially the Habitats Directive, and take action to end destructive fishing such as bottom trawling in MPAs. Protect Our Catch and its members will campaign throughout the year in Brussels for this action.
With public support for stronger marine protection growing across Europe, polls indicate 90% believe MPAs are essential for preserving marine biodiversity, and 73% would support a ban on bottom trawling within protected areas. Further, hundreds of thousands of citizen activists across Europe have taken action in supporting an end to bottom trawling in MPAs123.
Isaac Moya, a fisherman in Catalunya and co-founder of sustainable fisheries collective Empesca’t, urged the Commissioner to take a stand for sustainable practices, saying “As small-scale fishers, we rely on traditional, low-impact methods that respect the ocean and our culture. However, industrial and bottom trawling in marine protected areas threaten our future. To ensure the continuity of our profession, it is essential to protect and promote artisanal fishing.”
Federico Gelmi, a low-impact fisher, from Pantelleria, Italy, said: “Bottom trawling in MPAs is incompatible with sustainable fishing. The science is clear and the fishing tells the same story, we need to protect our ocean if we are to continue fishing.”
Claire Nouvian, Founder & General Director, BLOOM, said: “Today, France is responding to the climate, social and environmental emergency with inaction and deception. This must and can change: we have no choice, as all scientists say, but to stop destroying the ocean and to finally protect it. The future of the ocean, the climate, and humanity, lies in the balance. President Macron must rise to the challenge and respond to the challenges we face by creating genuine marine protected areas, free from industrial infrastructure and activities such as trawling, by excluding mega-trawlers from our territorial waters, in order to protect ecosystems and coastal fishers, and by advocating for a treaty and legislation on the non-proliferation of fossil fuels”
Clare Brook, CEO of the Blue Marine Foundation, said: “Bottom trawling is a damaging and indiscriminate fishing method which ploughs up precious habitats, decimates biodiversity and depletes the ocean’s ability to sequester carbon. Yet this highly destructive type of fishing is still allowed in the majority of marine protected areas. We must ensure that bottom trawling is excluded from all marine protected areas without exception.”
Steve Trent, EJF CEO and founder, said: “Most European ‘Marine Protected Areas’ are just lines on a map, paper parks which do nothing to stop the ongoing destruction of vital habitats. The laws are clear, and the science is unequivocal. Bottom trawling is incompatible with marine protected areas, and we urgently need action to ban it. 79% of the EU’s coastal seabed is physically disturbed, primarily because of this trawling, with a quarter of the EU’s coastal area likely having lost its natural seabed habitats. I call on our leaders to stand up for wildlife, people and our ocean now.”
Nicolas Fournier, Campaign Director at Oceana in Europe, said: “As political momentum is growing ahead of the UN Ocean Conference in June, EU leaders can’t continue to ignore the public outcry about the destruction of protected areas by bottom trawling, as hundreds of thousands of EU citizens want meaningful marine protection. We urge the European Commission to particularly recognise in its future Ocean Pact how MPAs help protect fishers’ livelihoods and support coastal communities, including to counter the impacts of climate change on people.”
Tatiana Nuño, Senior Marine Policy Officer from Seas At Risk, said: “At a time when the EU is laser focused on competitiveness, it’s vital that MPAs are recognised as key to building a sustainable blue economy that promotes both a healthy ocean and a healthy economy. Not only do MPAs help recover fish stocks and support sustainable fishing jobs – they also benefit the EU economy with projections showing that a ban on bottom trawling in them would create a cumulative profit of more than €8 billion over 20 years. If Commissioner Kadis is serious about creating an EU Ocean Pact that delivers for people and the planet alike then it’s high time the taboo around banning bottom trawling is cast aside.”
END
1 https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2023-05-end-bottom-trawling-petition-EN
