Britain’s Missed Chance to Protect Our Oceans: The Bottom Trawling Ban That Never Was

Bottom trawling: how the government just missed a golden chance to protect our oceans

The government has just bottled it. After pledging to protect our seas, they have now refused to ban bottom trawling, one of the most destructive fishing practices on Earth. A real chance to do the right thing for our oceans has been wasted.

Last month, ministers confirmed that the UK will not enforce an outright ban on bottom trawling, despite promising earlier this year to extend restrictions on bottom-towed fishing gear to offshore protected areas. The Environment Audit Committee’s own report made that clear, and the government chose to ignore it. It is a deeply disappointing move that shows how far we still are from treating the sea as something worth protecting rather than plundering.

Back in 2021, along with Greenpeace we dropped a giant boulder into a marine protection zone in the English Channel, not to make a statement but to make a difference. It was a simple, physical act to stop trawlers from ripping up the seabed. Because if the government will not defend our oceans, sometimes we have to.

What is bottom trawling and why is it so bad?

Bottom trawling is as brutal as it sounds. Huge weighted nets are dragged along the ocean floor, scooping up everything in their path. The small share of “desirable” fish, such as cod, haddock and sole, is kept. Everything else, from starfish to corals, is killed and dumped.

This is bulldozing the ocean, pure and simple. It destroys fragile ecosystems that have taken centuries to form and releases vast amounts of stored carbon into the water and atmosphere. When sea creatures die, their carbon stays buried in the sediment. When a trawl passes through, it is all released, like digging up the Amazon rainforest with a steel shovel.

Scientists have found that bottom trawling releases around 370 million tonnes of CO₂ every year, roughly the same as 66 million cars on the road. According to a study in Frontiers in Marine Science, around 60% of that carbon escapes into the atmosphere within a decade. This is not just about fish, it is about the climate.

The practice is so destructive that David Attenborough called it out in his BBC documentary Ocean, saying industrial fishing has wiped out two-thirds of all large predator fish, and that in Antarctica, trawlers may be “removing the foundation of an entire ecosystem”. The film shows bottom trawling in grim detail, a clear picture of what happens when profit trumps protection.

It's so obviously bad even kids know about it - BBC Newsround recently explained the issue for younger audiences, and it is just as damning.

What the government has said and why it is not enough

The Environmental Audit Committee published its report Governing the Marine Environment back in June. It made one of the clearest recommendations yet: ban bottom trawling in offshore Marine Protected Areas.

The government’s response? A shrug. DEFRA said it would not introduce “whole-site bans” because they were “disproportionate and not in line with legislation”. Instead, they will only restrict fishing that has been specifically proven to damage the “protected features” of a given area.

That is bureaucratic nonsense. We know bottom trawling damages everything it touches. Pretending it can be managed case by case is like saying you will only ban chainsaws in parts of the forest where trees have already been cut down.

The Commons committee chair called bottom trawling exactly what it is, “a destructive practice”. The committee praised limited progress but said the refusal to go further “risks undermining the integrity of protected areas”.

Let us be clear. The government had a real opportunity to protect 41 designated marine areas around England, home to dolphins, puffins and seahorses, and they blew it. Instead, bottom trawling will continue in most so-called protected waters. That was confirmed in a recent government ruling.

At present, bottom trawling is only completely banned in three Highly Protected Marine Areas across the UK. Three, out of hundreds. That is not protection, it is politics.

Why this matters

When the seabed dies, the ocean dies with it. These ecosystems do not just store carbon, they provide the breeding grounds and food sources for countless species, the base of life itself. Once they are gone, they do not come back quickly.

The government’s refusal to act lets us down again. We have had decades of warnings, mountains of evidence and global examples of success. Sweden and Greece have already banned bottom trawling in their marine protected zones. The EU plans to ban it across all MPAs by 2030. Britain could have led here. Instead, we are lagging behind.

So what can we do?

Just because the government will not act does not mean we cannot. Public pressure works. Keep writing to your MPs, keep raising the issue, and support campaigns calling for a full ban. The more noise we make, the harder it gets to ignore.

But there is something even simpler we can do right now: stop funding this destruction with our plates. The fishing industry only exists at this scale because people keep buying its products. Every time we buy seafood, we are bankrolling the bulldozing of the ocean floor.

If you want to save marine life, do not eat it. Choose plants. It is not just a personal choice, it is an act of ocean defence. Every vegan meal chips away at the industry destroying our seas.

The bottom line

We had a chance to protect our oceans and we blew it. Instead of drawing a line in the sand, the government has chosen to keep dragging nets across the seabed. But change does not just come from Westminster. It starts with us, with what we eat, who we vote for and how loud we are willing to be.

The tide can still turn, but only if we make it.

:)