UK Study Recommends Banning Fishing In 30% Of British Waters - BBC

[hatrack]

"Commercial fishing should be banned in 30% of UK waters to save threatened species, an influential report says. The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution said the capacity of the UK fishing fleet should be cut "to an environmentally sustainable level".

RCEP chairman Sir Tom Blundell told the BBC that the industry's future depended on such measures. But fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw said steps already taken had first to be allowed to have an impact.

The report - Turning The Tide, Addressing The Impact Of Fisheries On The Marine Environment - says the sea should be treated in the same way as endangered land habitats. It said: "Currently, the marine environment is regulated on the basis of a presumption in favour of fishing... we recommend that the presumption should be reversed."

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The RCEP also said some of the effects of current fishing practices were ruinous: a recently-introduced net with a mouth the size of 50 football pitches, for example, and bottom-trawlers which plough furrows up to 6m wide and 0.15m deep for many km across the seabed. It cited a report by the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas which says the proportion of north-east Atlantic fish stocks within safe biological limits fell from 26% to 16% between 1996 and 2001."

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4072503.stm