Extensive Use of Habitat-Damaging Fishing Gears Inside Habitat-Protecting Marine Protected Areas

Allison L Perry,Silvia García,Nicolas Fournier,Jorge Blanco

doi:10.3389/fmars.2022.811926

Allison L Perry, Silvia García + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2022.811926

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Abstract

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are critical for halting marine biodiversity loss and safeguarding ecosystems. However, efforts to designate additional areas as MPAs have generally taken precedence over ensuring that designated sites are effectively protected. Serious concerns exist about marine “paper parks” in Europe, particularly in relation to the threat of fishing. We focussed on 1,945 MPAs in EU and UK waters that are designated to protect habitats, and assessed the extent of fishing inside them with gears that are known to directly threaten those same habitats. Such “high-risk” fishing was widespread, occurring within 510 MPAs that represented 86% of the area assessed, and was more prevalent in larger, offshore sites. More intense high-risk fishing inside reef and sandbank MPAs was associated with the poorer conservation status of those habitats in countries’ waters. Our findings indicate that without systematic restrictions on damaging fishing gears, MPAs are unlikely to help reverse the ongoing declines of European marine habitats.

Highlights

In the face of severe human pressure on the marine environment, marine protected areas (MPAs) are a critical tool for safeguarding biodiversity and maintaining and recovering ecosystems
Extensive areas of the European seabed are exposed to damaging fishing gears (European Environment Agency [EEA], 2019a), and even within Marine protected areas (MPAs), fishing represents the main pressure on seabed habitats (Aronsson et al, 2015)
Our analysis revealed that the use of habitat-damaging fishing gears is pervasive across EU and UK MPAs that are intended to protect marine habitats

Summary

INTRODUCTION

In the face of severe human pressure on the marine environment, marine protected areas (MPAs) are a critical tool for safeguarding biodiversity and maintaining and recovering ecosystems. The need to protect significantly more marine area (O’Leary et al, 2016) has gained political recognition in the leadup to the adoption of a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, with nearly 70 countries making commitments to protect at least 30% of the ocean by 2030 (High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People, 2021) These targets are important for setting the course for action, yet have inadvertently led to a “race to designate” in which a critical aspect of the CBD and Sustainable Development Goal 14 targets has been ignored: neither target is about designation only, but instead call for MPAs that deliver effective conservation (Convention on Biological Diversity [CBD], 2013; United Nations, 2015). To evaluate the effectiveness of European MPAs, it is important to understand whether they provide even this minimal level of feature-based protection We address this question by focusing on one of the most significant threats to marine ecosystems in Europe: fishing with habitat-damaging gears (European Environment Agency [EEA], 2019a). We explore whether more intense high-risk fishing is associated with poorer conservation status of protected habitats in European waters

MATERIALS AND METHODS

RESULTS

DISCUSSION

Findings

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT