A new report published by Seas At Risk and Oceana shows that bottom trawling can be largely replaced in the EU by less aggressive fishing gears.

The NGOs say that switching to readily available alternatives to bottom trawling offers multiple benefits, such as dramatically improving fisheries resources, protecting the seabed and marine habitats and increasing resilience of the ocean to the climate breakdown.

They assert that bottom trawling is the main fishing method used in Europe, accounting for 32% of total EU landings (7.3 million tonnes) whilst also responsible for 93% of all reported discards – catches of species which are not kept, but returned to the sea, dead or dying – in the EU (1 million tonnes) over the period 2015-2019.

More than 25 other types of gear are used in the EU, some of which are used to catch the same species as bottom trawling, like purse seines, set gillnets or pots and traps that altogether represent 66% of total EU landings, but with generally less damaging effects on the environment. Alternative gears can however have their own associated environmental problems, especially in terms of bycatch of sensitive species.

Where such environmental impacts on sensitive species cannot be avoided with technical measures, Oceana and Seas At Risk recommend, instead of a switch to these gears, an overall reduction in the amount of fishing in the areas concerned.

• The full un-edited version of this news release from Seas at Risk can be found here.
• Oceana’s Press release is available here.
• An infographic on theimpacts of bottom trawling in Europe (Oceana).
• A fact sheet supported by infographics explaining the links between bottom trawling and climate change (Seas At Risk).
• The full report can be read here:Exploring Alternatives to Europe’s bottom trawl fishing gears