Not Much of a Protection!

Global Fishing Watch have established that more than 200,000 hours of bottom trawling and dredging took place in UK Marine Protected Areas in 2019 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/09/revealed-97-of-uk-offshore-marine-parks-subject-to-destructive-fishing). This activity, which is incredibly damaging to marine ecosystems, was found to occur in all but 2 of the 73 (i.e. 97%) Protected Areas around our coast. We constantly boast about how much of our environment we are protecting (something that happens in other countries, also) but, once again, it appears that the 'protection' is not worth the paper it is written on. If we can't stop the most damaging activity, what chance have we got with 'minor' incursions?