Report | June 9, 2020
Protecting the North Sea: Borkum Stones
Borkum Stones (also known as Borkum Reef Grounds, and as Borkumse Stenen in Dutch and Borkum Riffgrund in German) is located in the southern North Sea, and encompasses waters of both the Netherlands and Germany. The Dutch part of Borkum Stones lies seven nautical miles north of Schiermonnikoog (one of the Wadden Islands) and covers an area of approximately 600 km2 (Figure 1).1 To the east, the German part of Borkum Stones is roughly 14 nautical miles north of Borkum Island, and encompasses an area of 625 km2. 2 The seabed in Borkum Stones is characterised by a mixture of sandy and hard bottoms. These bottoms, with rocks surrounded by gravels and sandy areas, are home to a wide variety of benthic communities, and qualify for protection under the framework of the European Habitats Directive3 on the basis of the occurrence of sandbanks and reefs. For that reason, in 2007 the German side of Borkum Stones was declared a Natura 2000 protected area (Borkum-Riffgrund).
The area is one of only two natural hard-bottom areas that remain in Dutch waters after decades of damaging anthropogenic activities that involve substrate removal, such as bottom-trawl fisheries.4 The other such area, Cleaver Bank (Klaverbank in Dutch), is already protected under the EU Habitats Directive, on the basis of its reef habitat.
Oceana conducted research surveys in Borkum Stones in 2017, to provide information about the benthic species, communities, and habitats of the area. These surveys were part of a research expedition carried out across the waters of five North Sea countries, which aimed to gather critical data for improving the existing network of North Sea marine protected areas. The surveys in Borkum Stones focused mainly on the Dutch side of the area, due to the fact that those waters lack protection. The findings of Oceana’s surveys are presented here, in the broader context of the biodiversity of Borkum Stones, the threats it faces, and the implications for the protection of the Dutch part of the area.
