15 Aug 2023

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 […]

01 Aug 2023

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 […]

13 Jun 2023

A study published in Science Advances provides evidence that large-scale, offshore, and fully-protected marine areas (MPAs) protect biodiversity without negatively impacting fishing and food security. In the first-ever “before and after” assessment of the impact of establishing Mexico’s Revillagigedo National Park on the fishing industry, a team of U.S. and Mexican researchers found that Mexico’s industrial […]

06 Jun 2023

Australia plans to triple the size of an ecologically important marine park and close off an area larger than Germany to fishing and mining, the government announced Monday, protecting millions of vulnerable seabirds and animals. The remote Macquarie Island Marine Park, located off Australia’s southeastern coast between Tasmania and Antarctica in the Southern Ocean, is set to […]