Marine reserve plan for North Sea

[Fiona]

Conservationists want part of the North Sea as a marine reserve

Environmentalists have called for a ban on commercial fishing and dredging off East Anglia's coast.

Greenpeace wants the Dogger Bank and other parts of the North Sea - up to 40% of the area - to be a marine reserve like a land-based country park.

Campaigner Sarah Duthie of Greenpeace said that it would be a major step in protecting sea life.

Fishing groups want to hear more about the plan and the Government says much is already being done.

Ms Duthie said the conservation area off the coasts of Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, would be a major step in protecting sea life.

"If you want your children to be able to eat cod or mackerel, or be able to see dolphins in the North Sea, then you should support the idea of large scale marine reserves, essentially national parks at sea," she said.

"Today's situation, where scientists are warning that cod could disappear from the North Sea in the same way they did from Canada's Grand Banks yet we carry on fishing, is total madness.

The seas are huge but what's happened to cod stocks shows they are finite

Sarah Duthie of Greenpeace


Greenpeace have compiled a report making the case for marine conservation areas and have provided maps of the sea off the East Anglia coast based on their scientific survey data.

The maps are said to show ecologically important habitats as well as fish spawning and nursery grounds.

The report also outlines the many threats facing the North and Baltic Seas from over-fishing, mineral extraction and global warming.

The report is critical of the Common Fisheries Policy and the Habitats Directives arguing that these regulations are failing to reverse drastic declines in fish stocks and in populations of other marine species.

Matt Mander from King's Lynn-based Eastern Sea Fisheries said: "We are interested in what they have to say but they're not new ideas.

Important spawning grounds

"We can agree in principle that reserve areas are sometimes good for the industry. It has worked for mackerel fleets off the south west peninsula.

"Everyone recognises the importance of certain parts of the sea for spawning and the development of good stocks.

"However, this seems to point to a seasonal restriction on fishing rather than an outright ban. We would like to see their maps and data, especially about spawning areas.

"Our fleets are mainly inshore now after the beam trawlers based at Lowestoft to catch plaice went to Dutch owners."

He added: "But other species of fish are important to us and protecting spawning grounds at critical times of the year interests us."

Fisheries minister, Ben Bradshaw - who relies on data from the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, based at Lowestoft - said: "The new CFP includes a requirement for recovery plans for stocks which are outside safe limits.

"The key element is to reduce fishing pressure on the threatened stocks. "Some stocks - shellfish generally and North Sea haddock and herring - are doing well."

[Dr Stevil]

Herring doing well... that sounds a bit unlikely.

Anyhoo.. if anyone is interested in knowing how prolific cod used to be before industrial fishing came along, this is a good little holiday book

[chrisch]

I grew up in that part of the world (used to fish off Bacton). I stopped fishing (rod and line that is) about ten years back as the fish had more or less gone. Cod, once the staple were by then very few and small. As compensation there seemed to be many more Whiting, but these are small, not much fun to catch and a pain to fillet.
I remember at one time that off Dungeness (Kent) in the winter storms cod used occassionally to beach in between big waves they were so numerous and so close inshore.
I haven't seen one underwater in a while. Mainly Pollack and Pouting/Bib.

One day someone will figure these species can be made into something or another and they will dissapear from our wrecks. Like the Ling already have.

I support this idea but I bet the CFP will stop it happening (or the Spanish).

Chris

[daveyclayton]

I can heartily recommend Mark Kurlansky's "Cod" - it's a cracking read.

My favourite bit is an interview with some Cornish fishermen, who are bemoaning the Spanish fishing out the Cod. The interviewer says something about how the Spaniards have only been fishing there a short time, to which the fisherman replies "Oh, yes, the Scots used to overfish too."

[louigi]

For me they can turn all the seas into a big nature reserve I prefer to see the creatures down there rater than eat them.
Llew

[Mr T.]

Campaign for 'national parks at sea'
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
(Filed: 14/07/2004)


Greenpeace is calling for 40 per cent of the North Sea to be set aside from fishing, dredging and explorations for minerals.

The environmental group is proposing seven large areas of the North Sea, including the Dogger Bank, which should become the marine reserves that the European Union is committed to creating over the next eight years.

In a campaign launched today, Greenpeace says science-based fisheries management under the Common Fisheries Policy has failed. It says large reserves are the only way to research marine life and allow nature to repair the damage that has been caused to the over-fished and polluted ecosystem of the North Sea.

The proposed reserve areas are very large and likely to be controversial with fishermen, the oil industry and with aggregate dredgers.

The campaign raises the curtain on a virtually inevitable process of setting aside some areas of the sea because the EU is committed to establishing such a network over the next eight years under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Greenpeace says it will take several years for EU governments to develop a legal mechanism for establishing the reserves it is committed to under international agreement signed at the Johannesburg Earth Summit.

As a result, an immediate ban on fishing and other damaging activities in the proposed areas is needed.

Sarah Duthie of Greenpeace said: "If you want your children to be able to eat cod or mackerel, or to be able to see dolphins in the North Sea, then you should support the idea of large-scale marine reserves - essentially national parks at sea."

Barry Deas of the National Federation of Fishermen's Organisations said: "Forty per cent is nonsense. This is Greenpeace doing what they do best which is taking extreme positions in the hope of moving the debate in the direction they want.

"If you banned fishing in 40 per cent of the sea it would just intensify fishing in the other 60 per cent.

"We are already working with responsible groups to address the issues confronting the fishing industry."

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by louigi

For me they can turn all the seas into a big nature reserve I prefer to see the creatures down there rater than eat them.
Llew

If only more people thought like that.

As you know we divers are a tiny minority and the fish scoffers (of which I am one - guilty) are the majority. The scoffers don't get to see what's down there.

I read once that government subsidy means that for every pound you pay at Tescos the total "real" cost is three quid (world figures). I had some prawns the other day and reflected on the fact they came from Brasil of all places. The fuel needed to catch and transport fish must be far more than the calorific value of the fish itself. I believe that is also true of the farmed food we eat.

When the oil runs out we will all starve.

This stuff shits me up if I really think about it hard. The depressing thing is no-one seems to care much so long as they have a big SUV and cheap fuel (remember the fuel protests in the UK and the 'dump the pumps' twat in his BMW 7 series?),

Louigi mate there aint much Italian in you! Where's your speargun?

Chris.

[Mr T.]

Call for conservation areas under the sea
By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
(Filed: 26/07/2004)


The law is failing to protect wildlife in the sea, whether dolphins, fish or shellfish, according to the most extensive review of the marine environment carried out for the Government for 25 years.

The examination of the current system of marine conservation, presented to ministers, concluded that "it is not fit for the purpose".

The finding comes at a time when ministers are under pressure from the EU and international treaties to create a network of marine nature reserves and to give greater protection to already protected species, such as the common dolphin which is being washed up dead in large numbers on the south west coast.

The review, by a panel chaired by senior officials from the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, calls for the Government to set up a framework of nature conservation areas at sea, similar to those on land, and to introduce changes in planning law to recognise and protect marine ecology, wrecks and archaeological sites beneath the sea.

See the DEFRA reports here:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/co...-env/index.htm