There is sometimes such a level of absurdity within the world of sustainability that you might think some sort of darkly humorous prank is being played on you. This might be the series of international climate negotiations hosted by some of the world’s least environmentally friendly petrostates, or an Alliance to End Plastic Waste formed exclusively of the biggest producers of plastic waste. The longer you spend as a ‘sustainability professional’ the more of these scream-at-the-TV experiences you encounter. The latest one to rear its ugly head: bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs).
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) signed at COP15 in 2022 aims to be to nature what the Paris Agreement has been to climate. Among its headline goals is the 30×30 target of restoring and protecting 30% of the planet’s surface by 2030. This includes coastal waters and the high seas. The case for protecting the marine environment should be pretty clear by now. While it is quite right to be up in arms about Amazon deforestation, seagrass meadows capture carbon 35 faster than tropical rainforests. Kelp is similarly adept at carbon sequestration, and these and other marine flora also provide habitat and breeding grounds for marine fauna as well as protection against coastal erosion.
There is compelling evidence that MPAs and ‘no-catch zones’ allow the marine environment to recover and fish stocks to reestablish themselves, which ultimately benefits the fishing industry as thriving marine life spreads beyond the confines of the MPA. However, despite various MPAs being designated throughout Europe there is evidence that some of these areas are protected in name only. Incredibly, in the UK bottom trawling is still allowed in 90% of MPAs. European Union (EU) environmental legislation bans the practice in MPAs that host vulnerable habitats like seagrass meadows or coral reefs. Despite this two NGOs felt compelled to take the French government to court last year over its flouting of this rule.
So why the fuss over bottom trawling? One could compare it to using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but it is more akin to using a tactical nuclear weapon to shell a sunflower seed. Bottom trawling involves powerful ships dragging heavily weighted metal plough-like devices across the seabed to capture everything in their path. All habitat they encounter is destroyed and most of the catch is subsequently discarded. As part of the filming of Sir David Attenborough’s latest documentary Ocean, his team fixed cameras to the dragnets to give the general public its first glimpse of the destruction that takes place out of sight – and out of mind. The idea of doing this within a MPA is an utter absurdity.
In better news, The Verband der Deutschen Kutter- und Küstenfischer (VDK – Association of German Cutter and Coastal Fishermen) has failed in its legal attempt to carry on bottom trawling in MPAs. The EU General Court upheld member states’ right to ban damaging fishing techniques in vulnerable marine areas. As it stands, the right laws are in place but, as often happens with sustainability, implementation and policing are sorely lacking. The fishing industry is still a powerful force to be reckoned with, aggressively lobbying to protect its modus operandi. Bottom trawling is just one facet of a self-destructive global industry that combines to deploy several hundred thousand poorly regulated factory ships to every corner of the planet. Whether capturing krill in the Antarctic to produce petfood or feed for fish farms or deploying up to 40 km-long driftnets in the open ocean, the industrial fishing sector is the very definition of unsustainable.
In January 2025 the EU Commission issued a call for evidence to inform a new Oceans Pact, which it intends to present at the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) that France and Costa Rica are co-hosting in Nice from 9 to 13 June 2025. Despite covering almost three quarters of the planet and affording enormous economic, climactic, and human wellbeing benefits the ocean is often somewhat of an environmental afterthought. Anyone that still needs convincing should sit through the emotional roller coaster that is Attenborough’s Ocean film, which is in theatres right now.
The Laundromat has had the pleasure of seeing how quickly a previously bottom trawled marine environment can recover thanks to Sussex Bay, a local project that is in the process of restoring 160 km of England’s southern coastal waters. This is just one of many impressive marine initiatives around the world that can help us gloomy sustainability nerds deal with some of the dark absurdities we face every day.
