More than half of the oil accidentally spilled by offshore oil and gas operations in UK waters over the past decade has ended up in marine protected areas (MPAs) meant to protect rare and threatened habitats and species, a Greenpeace Unearthed investigation has found. The Unearthed analysis of official data has found that over the […]
Dogger Bank, a sandbank in the North Sea was designated a marine protected area more than decade ago to conserve its sensitive seabed habitat. Yet for most of that time, industrial fishing vessels legally dragged damaging gear across the seabed, prompting NGOs to cite it as one of Europe’s emblematic “paper parks,” where the designation […]
A report published by the Marine Conservation Society has calculated the cost-benefit of banning bottom-contact fishing from the UK’s offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) designated to protect seabed features. The analysis shows that initially, costs outweigh the economic gains of banning bottom-contact fishing gear. Costs include the loss of earnings by fishers, and the setting […]
Countries from around the North-East Atlantic met in Oslo, Norway for the 2023 meeting of the OSPAR Commission for the Protection and Conservation of the North-East Atlantic. OSPAR Contracting Parties agreed to extend its largest Marine Protected Area (MPA) to include the seabed and a number of additional species and habitats, such as coral gardens […]