Activists aboard a Greenpeace ship have constructed an underwater “rock barrier” to finish dangerous fishing practices in one of many UK’s marine protected areas.

The environmental group crossed the barrier in secret final week. It goals to shut 55 sq. miles off Brighton, one-fifth of its whole space, because of threats from harmful backside trawling. It’s hoped that this may forestall the nets from reaching the seabed and impacting different marine organisms.

A earlier related try at a boulder barrier protest implored the UK authorities to close down Dogger Financial institution and the offshore areas of South Dorset to dangerous fishing observe. At current, the UK authorities has left 97% of nationwide waters open to this course of, Inexperienced peace mentioned.

British celebrities similar to Thandie Newton, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Paloma Religion, Jarvis Cocker and Ranulph Fiennes have put their names on among the massive rocks.

Conductor and broadcaster Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall says he’s “proud to have had the prospect to place my identify on certainly one of these rocks”.

“Nevertheless, that should not be obligatory,” he provides. “Our fervent hope is that our authorities will now flip phrases into motion, paper parks into true conservation and adequately shield our oceans.”

“The federal government’s resolution to correctly shield solely two of the UK’s protected areas barely touches the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what is required to avoid wasting our oceans,” says Chris Thorne, Greenpeace ocean activist.

“The entire UK’s protected areas want actual safety, not only a handful. This authorities is meant to point out world management in ocean conservation and battle for 30% of the world’s oceans to be protected, nevertheless it can’t even correctly shield 30% of our personal waters ”.

Influence of backside trawling on our oceans

Backside trawling is a fishing observe that includes dragging closely weighted nets throughout the seabed in an effort to catch big quantities of fish. It’s generally utilized in industrial fishing for that reason. It has been known as the marine equal of deforestation.

Greenpeace challenges this technique as a result of it’s “blind” to what’s captured, creating a huge effect on the biodiversity of the oceans.

In hotter nations like New Zealand, this will have a disproportionate impression on coral and turtle populations. Final yr, New Zealand trawling destroyed as much as 3,000 tonnes of deep-sea corals.

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