15 May 2023

A paper published in Nature refutes the findings of a paper by Sala et al, 2021 on the amount of CO2 released from the seabed by bottom trawling. The paper made significant headlines around the world as it equated the carbon released by bottom trawling to be of a similar magnitude to the CO2 created […]

06 Mar 2023

Cabinet Secretary for Rural Economy and the Tourism, Mairi Gougeon has told Scottish Labour MSP for Central Scotland, Monica Lennon, that the government has no plans to introduce a three-nautical mile limit. When the Scottish Labour MSP for Central Scotland asked in a written question: “To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to […]

04 Oct 2022

New research in the journal PLOS Climate has estimated that by eliminating mobile bottom fishing it could reduce seabed carbon disturbance by 27-67%.     Below is an extract from the article abstract: ‘Mobile bottom fishing using trawls and dredges may cause significant reductions in seabed sediment organic carbon stores, limiting the oceanic carbon sink. […]

27 Sep 2022

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 […]

01 Mar 2022

Chris Grayling, MP, is introducing a Ten Minute Rule Motion entitled ‘Marine Protected Areas (Bottom Trawling)’. We covered previously that a study noted that Brexit may bring some benefits to the environment as it has enabled the UK to reclaim the autonomy to designate offshore marine protected areas. For example, this has enabled a proposal to […]

18 Jan 2022

A global study of the impacts of bottom trawling reports undertaken by Bangor University with collaborating research institutes and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, builds on recent international collaboration. It brings together data from 24 large marine regions around the world to establish a relationship between distribution and intensity of trawling […]

22 Sep 2020

Activists on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza have started to place granite blocks on the seabed inside the Dogger Bank protected area in the North Sea to prevent bottom trawling. This follows on from their investigation which found industrial bottom trawlers systematically breaking the law by switching of their Automatic Information System (AIS) while fishing on […]