Marine Protected Areas: Why the UK needs more – Patrick Hall

Marine Protected Areas are vital to safeguarding our seas and oceans, home to creatures that produce about half the oxygen we breathe, writes Patrick Hall.
The oceans are a vital source of food, but one we have been over-exploiting (Picture: Thinkstock/Getty)The oceans are a vital source of food, but one we have been over-exploiting (Picture: Thinkstock/Getty)
The oceans are a vital source of food, but one we have been over-exploiting (Picture: Thinkstock/Getty)

The biodiversity of the world’s oceans and seas is in significant decline. Human activities, particularly over-fishing, are reducing the abundance of target species and genetic diversity. Ninety-three per cent of the world’s fish stocks are either fully exploited or over-exploited by commercial fishing.

The importance of our oceans and seas cannot be overstated. It is estimated that roughly a quarter of species on earth live in the oceans, and about a third of all anthropogenic carbon emissions in the last two centuries have been absorbed by the world’s oceans, making them important carbon sinks. Fisheries provide 15 per cent of the global intake of animal protein that we eat, and phytoplankton – small algal creatures that the oceanic food chain depends upon – produce 50 per cent of the oxygen we breathe.

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Nevertheless, it has been estimated that 92.2 per cent of the world’s oceans are not Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), which have varying degrees of restrictions placed on human activities for the purpose of conservation.

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Fishing practices are often unsustainable and, not at all encouraged by the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy, can involve unintentionally catching protected and vulnerable species, with too much bycatch.

In our newly released report, Global green giant?, Bright Blue recommends ambitious policies to better protect our marine environment and create more sustainable fishing.

Right now, existing MPAs cover about 1.2 per cent of international waters, with a UN agreement endorsing raising this to 10 per cent. The UK has supported an international target of 30 per cent of the high seas being MPAs by 2030. Nonetheless, only 25 per cent of the UK’s domestic waters are currently MPAs. This level of domestic protection is lower than other EU countries such as France and Belgium that have 45 and 36.7 per cent respectively, and it is inconsistent with the UK’s international aims. The UK Government should set a target of protecting 30per cent of UK domestic waters as Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) by 2030.

MPAs vary in terms of the protection they provide the marine environment. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has devised a spectrum ranging from the most to the least protective. Of the IUCN’s seven management categories for MPAs, category IV, or “Conservation Park Zones”, allows for the conservation of whole marine areas with opportunities for “reasonable use and enjoyment, including limited extractive use”. Only two per cent of the million km2 South Sandwich Islands MPA, for example, meets this standard.

Category IV should be the minimum benchmark for all UK and UK Overseas Territories’ MPAs to conserve marine environments without enforcing overbearing restrictions, but MPAs should be more ambitious if possible. We should ban bottom trawling in all of our MPAs. Such measures are already in place in other countries such as New Zealand, Indonesia, and certain US states.

Bottom trawling is the practice of dropping a weighted net onto the ocean floor and dragging it. It frequently contributes to overfishing and undersized catches, leading to marine life being discarded. Bottom trawling also disturbs or destroys everything in its path, including rocks and coral reefs that are habitats for marine life. Many maritime species not intended to be caught, such as seabird and turtles, are also caught and often do not survive.

Given the utmost importance of our ocean environments, and with marine biodiversity in sharp decline, the UK needs to adopt bolder measures on marine conservation. In doing so, it would take a step closer to becoming a global green giant.

Patrick Hall is a researcher at think tank Bright Blue, and author of the report ‘Global green giant?’

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