Marine Reserves

Many fish stocks in the seas around the UK are in a state of collapse due to overfishing and much of the marine environment has been badly damaged by bottom trawling and activities such as aggregate dredging. One of our members, Malcolm Hunter, is national activism lead for the MARINET Marine Reserves Campaign, who are campaigning for substantial areas to be set aside as marine reserves, with all fishing and mineral extraction banned.  We believe that the establishment of such refuges is the only way to ensure the long term survival of fish stocks and the long term survival of a fishing industry.

The Government has just published a draft Marine Bill, with a view to including a bill in the Queen's Speech in the autumn. As well as establishing a more coherent and integrated system for managing marine issues current Government proposals would make some provision for setting up protected areas, but we believe that the proposals do not go nearly far enough.  Setting up protected areas will be at the discretion of ministers. There are no proposals to extend protection outside of the 12 mile limit of the UK's territorial waters, into our 200 mile exclusive economic zone and the proposed level of protection offered to most protected areas will be very limited.  

We believe that there needs to be a duty on the Government to designate a minimum of 30% of UK waters, out to 200 nautical miles, as highly protected marine reserves, as recommended by a recent Royal Commission report.  The legal opinion that we have obtained is that implementation of these measures would not require renegotiation of the EU Common Fisheries Policy, as long as the reserves are for the protection of the marine environment as a whole (which is what we propose), rather than just to protect fish stocks.  

For more on why we need this extensive network of marine reserves see this briefing prepared for MPs.

To try to get the Bill strengthened MARINET, Friends of the Earth's marine network, has organized the MARINET Marine Reserves Campaign.  This campaign is working with other organizations, such as Greenpeace, WWF, the Marine Conservation Society, the RSPB and the Wildlife Trusts, to try to ensure that the UK marine environment is given the protection that it needs.  If you would like to help with the campaign, please contact Malcolm Hunter.

Finally, David Taylor, MP for NW Leicestershire, has tabled an Early Day Motion, EDM 1141, which MPs can sign up to to support the aims of the campaign. Please e-mail your MP urging them to do so.

"They are stripping the oceans bare" - "30%, the naked truth"

In Leicester we have had a fair bit of success in getting media attention by dressing up.  Another way of getting media attention is by undressing.  The fact that our seas are being "stripped" of fish by over-exploitation and the way that bottom trawling and aggregate dredging "strips" the sea bed of all life suggests an appropriate slogan around which to do this - "they are stripping the oceans bare", plus a supplementary slogan to highlight what we want to do about it - "30%, the naked truth".  

There are a number of recent precedents for such actions, including Greenpeace's recent photo shoot on a glacier, the annual World Naked Bike Ride, which takes place in June and the recent naked protests by pensioners, who had been "stripped" of their occupational pensions.

Given that the campaign is about the sea we plan to start off with a series of suitably publicized naked photo shoots/media photo ops, with appropriate banners and placards and with the sea as a backdrop. To make these actions fairly non-threatening to participate in we propose to use some of the naturist beaches scattered around our coast.  For those who want to these actions can form part of a weekend away, camping by the sea, but other people can just turn up for the photo shoot/op itself, if they prefer.

One immediate possibility might be to organize something around the Cimate Camp, for Sunday  the 11th of August when the camp breaks up, on a nearby naturist beach.  Anybody interested please let me know.

Malcolm Hunter
MARINET Marine Reserves Campaign Activism Lead
& Leicester FoE Media Officer.
 

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