Two articles – one on a European Parliament decision on deep sea fishing and a resurvey of the Darwin Mounds site. Begging the question of how UK will protect its deep sea marine environment?

1. MEPs and ministers strike informal deal to ban deep sea fishing below 800 metres

MEPs and ministers struck a deal on a ban on fishing below a depth of 800 meters in the North-East Atlantic. The ban, agreed on Thursday afternoon, will apply to bottom trawling and would also restrict deep-sea fishing to the area where it took place between 2009 and 2011. “When the European Commission originally proposed a ban on deep sea fishing, I made the bet that we could reconcile, socio-economic imperatives with environment protection ones, to further the cause of sustainable development. Contrary to claims made by prophets of doom, we have managed to strike a balance between fishing effort and ecology”, said rapporteur Isabelle Thomas (S&D, FR).

Depth limits   Parliament’s and Council’s negotiators agreed on setting a depth limit of 800 metres, so that no deep sea fishing will take place beneath this limit. This new provision will protect the fragile vulnerable marine ecosystems of the deep sea bed.

A separate provision for protecting the Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VME) was added to the regulation, whereby for deep sea fishing activities below 400 metres if the quantity of VME indicators (detailed list annexed to the regulation) caught exceeds certain thresholds (defined in the new regulation) the vessel would need to immediately stop all fishing operations and resume only when it has reached an area at least five nautical miles away from the area it encountered VME.

Fishing area covered by the new regulation   The EU will freeze the “footprint”-area where deep sea fishing activities took place- in EU waters in the North-East Atlantic to the area where deep-sea fishing took place in 2009-2011. This will apply to vessels targeting deep sea species; i.e. those whose deep sea species catch makes up more than 8% of the total on at least one fishing trip during the year. Click here to read more.

2. Darwin Mounds re-survey of MPA

NOC ‘A unique study recently published by scientists from the National Oceanography Centre and University College Cork shows that deep, cold-water corals are very slow to recover from damage. Therefore deep-water Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) protect vulnerable marine ecosystems most effectively when they are put in place before that damage occurs. This study used data from deep-water robots to compare a section of the northern Rockall Trough, off North West Scotland, before and after an MPA was set up. The coral populations remained stable in areas that had not been impacted by trawling before the area was closed to all bottom contact fisheries. However, the amount of live coral dropped dramatically in the parts of the MPA that had sustained previous damage, with hardly any live coral being found during the follow-up survey. Despite eight years of protection there were very few indications of new coral growth. Some deep-sea species grow slowly and do not recover from impacts quickly or easily. Dr Veerle Huvenne from the NOC, the lead author of this research paper, said “These findings are a really good example of how the NOC’s technology and scientific expertise can help inform the management of marine protected areas to get the best possible outcome.” Unlike their tropical cousins, cold-water corals do not need sunlight because they do not live in symbiosis with micro-algae. Instead, they capture their food from the water as it passes by. This means they can live in much colder and deeper waters. In 1998 NOC scientists discovered the first UK cold-water coral reefs one thousand metres deep, and named the area the ‘Darwin Mounds’ after their research ship RRS Charles Darwin. Cold-water corals build reefs that are important habitats for a wide range of other species, including commercially important fish. The reefs are fragile, and can easily be damaged by the heavy gear of deep-sea bottom trawlers. Click here for more information.