Dredging in crucial habitat sparks row over UK marine protected areas

Footage showing protected Scottish waters being cleaned by scallop dredgers shows marine protected areas are ‘paper parks’, campaigners say

By Madeleine cuff

A fresh row has erupted over the effectiveness of the UK’s marine protection programs after evidence emerged of a seabed in protected Scottish waters raked by scallop dredges.

Earlier this summer, campaign groups Open Seas and Greenpeace sent underwater drones to film the seabed inside the Small Islands Marine Protected Area (MPA), protected waters around the island of Rum on the west coast of Scotland.

The images suggest an area of ​​maerl – a fragile, slow-growing form of coral – inside the protected area has been destroyed by dredging activity, with the seabed reduced to a series of bare, furrowed tracks .

The groups say the evidence is proof that the Small Islands MPA is a ‘paper park’ that is not protected by the ban on destructive fishing methods.

It is currently legal for scallop dredgers and bottom trawlers to fish in this MPA and dozens of others around the UK coastline, despite protests from environmental campaigners.

“The majority of MPAs in the UK still do not have any form of fisheries management in place,” says Phil Taylor, policy and operations manager at Open Seas. “So these are parks of paper. And it’s the worst example of a paper park we’ve come across.

The Small Islands MPA, designated by the Scottish Government in 2014, is considered one of the UK’s most important marine habitats. It is home to the rare fan mussel (Atrina fragilis) alongside sensitive marine habitats such as buried mud and maerl beds.

Two years ago, the seabed area surveyed by Open Seas and Greenpeace had an “almost intact” maërl carpet, Taylor says. Now the site looks like a “plowed field,” he says.

Studies have repeatedly shown that scallop dredging causes catastrophic damage to maërl beds.

Maerl is the European equivalent of a coral reef, acting as a nursery environment for marine life, says Jason Hall-Spencer at the University of Plymouth, UK.

But they only grow 1 millimeter per year and therefore struggle to recover from dredging activities. “It’s thousands of years, these types of habitats,” he says. “If you damage a maerl bed, it won’t grow back.”

The Scottish Government is now under renewed pressure to ban scallop dredging in its MPAs, with Open Seas calling for an immediate ban.

More than a third of UK coastal waters are covered by MPAs, but bottom trawling is only banned in four.

In response to the findings, a Scottish government spokesperson said fisheries management measures will be introduced in all of its MPAs by 2024, including the Small Islands MPA.

“The Scottish Government is committed to protecting our precious marine environment and to achieving and maintaining good environmental status for all of Scotland’s seas,” they said in a statement. “We take our responsibility to protect the marine environment seriously.”

Campaigners say imposing stricter fishing rules on protected habitats will dramatically improve the UK’s marine biodiversity. In Lyme Bay, Dorset, for example, trawling and dredging were banned in 2008 and the area has seen a dramatic revival of marine biodiversity.