Time for some seabed love...

[piperatsea]

You may not like Hugh Fearlessly Eatsitall but he has a point. Less than 1% of seabed has any protection at all. YM and others seem to get quiet hysterical and ill-informed when the subject of seabed reserves is raised. It's time we grew up and did something real.

If you've never seen the destruction of the seabed from trawling and scallop dredging watch the Fishfight series now on TV or i player etc. It is devastating to all life on the sea bed and it rarely happens in places we want to anchor so don't start on the rights and safety nonsense.

Lots of small protected areas with proper protection give a large boundary area and on the unprotected side of the boundary fishing is improved significantly. We (or at least I) want to have a fishing industry. At the rate we're going we wont have one in a few years.

And don't be swayed by that silly article in the last YM. Protection doesn't mean closure. You can still walk in National Parks and Nature Reserves. Join in the consultation and have a grown up discussion.

 

[fisherman]

Aren't stats wonderful? Not to defend overfishing and the lack of conservation, but the surface area of the earth is 198 million sq miles, 71% is ocean, 140 million,1% of that is 1.4 milllion sq miles. It's still only 1% though.

 

[oldharry]

You may not like Hugh Fearlessly Eatsitall but he has a point. Less than 1% of seabed has any protection at all. YM and others seem to get quiet hysterical and ill-informed when the subject of seabed reserves is raised. It's time we grew up and did something real.

UKs MCZ programme is well advanced, and we have until Mar 31st to have our say before the whole thing goes forward. we have had the last four years to have our say. Its a too late now to do much about altering any aspect of the MCZ programme. The first MCZs will be designated later this year.

No, its not enough, but it IS a start

If you've never seen the destruction of the seabed from trawling and scallop dredging watch the Fishfight series now on TV or i player etc. It is devastating to all life on the sea bed and it rarely happens in places we want to anchor so don't start on the rights and safety nonsense.

+++1 The problem is that certain anchorages have been targeted by the Conservationists - some with ulterior motives, and false assertions are being peddled as scientific fact behind a massive smokescreen of emotional claptrap aimed specifically at "G&T swilling sunday afternoon sailors". Little of what is being said has any actual proven scientific basis and is intended to whip up support for the growing band of Zealots for whom conservation is an increasingly lucrative career.

We know now that proposals which do involve possible anchor bans are based on false premise, and BORG has produced a number of scientific papers now being examined by DEFRA which clearly show the wrong scientific assumptions on which Natural Englands report was based.

Lots of small protected areas with proper protection give a large boundary area and on the unprotected side of the boundary fishing is improved significantly. We (or at least I) want to have a fishing industry. At the rate we're going we wont have one in a few years.

And don't be swayed by that silly article in the last YM. Protection doesn't mean closure. You can still walk in National Parks and Nature Reserves. Join in the consultation and have a grown up discussion.

Its too late now, the consultation on MCZs is almost over. If conservationists have their way Protection WILL mean closure. I have spent many days since my retirement sitting in meetings listening to earnest conservationists saying JUST THAT. But for the intervention of RYA five years or more ago, legislation would have been passed that would have created numerous 'no go' areas round the coast. Even now the Wildlife Trusts are pleading with government to close key areas 'before its too late'. So yes, Conservation DOES mean restrictions on and possible closure of sea areas. Thankfully the government realises there will be substantial economic effects from doing so, and until those effects have been quantified is refusing to designate some of the more sensitive areas, earmarked as being in urgent need of action to preserve them.

Yes we DO very urgently need to ensure we use the seas resources in a way that is sustainable, and continuing to allow trawlers to smash their way across the seabed, raking it up to a foot below the surface with all the finesses of a motorway construction bulldozer, with trawl gear weighing four tons or more is most certainly NOT the way to do it.

The effect of leisure boats generally on coastal waters and the seabed is - if we take a few basic precautions - minimal. There ARE things we can and should do, particularly in environmentally sensitive areas. BORG, supported and part funded by RYA and by several of the Regional Wildlife Trusts is shortly to launch an educational information campaign for the coming season designed to give us the information we need in specific MCZ locations to ensure that we do not leave our mark on the seabed.

 

[fisherman]

The problem is that this country signed up to marine conservation measures along with other nations at the meeting, (was it Brazil, 2003?) to hit a certain percentage target, then came home and looked round for someone to bring it about. Up pops Natural England, not versed in the marine area, but hell, it'll do. They seem to have disregarded all the input from people who might know something. Like the renewable energy issue, it's just paying lip service, complying with the required returns.

 

[LittleShip]

The problem is that this country signed up to marine conservation measures along with other nations at the meeting, (was it Brazil, 2003?) to hit a certain percentage target, then came home and looked round for someone to bring it about. Up pops Natural England, not versed in the marine area, but hell, it'll do. They seem to have disregarded all the input from people who might know something. Like the renewable energy issue, it's just paying lip service, complying with the required returns.

Just wondering...... As your a "professional" fisherman, are you in favour or against having protected areas. I have friends who are divers and they tell me that where certain types of trawling is used the seabed is devoid of all life afterwards. On that bases, personally I feel that we need to protect more of the sea from over fishing or destructive trawling ?

Tom

 

[lustyd]

Just wondering...... As your a "professional" fisherman, are you in favour or against having protected areas. I have friends who are divers and they tell me that where certain types of trawling is used the seabed is devoid of all life afterwards. On that bases, personally I feel that we need to protect more of the sea from over fishing or destructive trawling ?

Tom

Farmers fields look devoid of all life after ploughing too. Looks can be deceiving, especially when the hippies are trying to make a point.

I am a diver and can tell you that to the untrained eye the vast majority of the seabed looks devoid of life. To the trained eye though it's a different story and the place is teaming with life. Trawling will temporarily disturb the seabed, but within a month it will be back to normal - fishermen wouldn't still be in business if the destruction was as permanent as made out in eco documentaries. Instead of thinking of them as raping the environment, why not think of them as farmers cultivating a generation of food?

 

[Searush]

Fortunately, the "reasonable approach" does seem to be taking hold at last. As Old Harry says, many "Conservationists" were attempting to stop ALL use of seas & beaches.

In Wales, complete "No take" zones were proposed for key tourist areas that would have banned all fishing (inc beach angling), boating, diving, even dogs & kids on the beach. This would have economically devastated the local economy which is highly dependant on tourism. There was a huge outcry & consultation is about to begin there about how the environment can be protected without destroying the economy.

It isn't that hard to say ban large scale commercial fishing in certain areas & still allow sustainable small scale family fishing (non-trawl) plus boat & beach angling, ,boating, diving & beach access etc which have a negligible impact on the environment. As Old Harry says, simple guidelines to help sea users to minimise the possible damage they could cause are simple & cheap to produce & most users will follow the suggestions. We all love the sea & our coastline, no-one wants to destroy it, but neither do we see the point of banning relatively harmless activities.

So, yes, hopefully, the voice of reason will prevail & the Nutty Conservationists will have to accept sensible compromise. I shan't hold my breath tho & will no longer trust certain eco-nutters out of my sight given their deceitful behaviour in the past.

 

[piperatsea]

Fisherman is right, statistics are great. The true figure for worldwide protected area is less than 1% by a big margin. The actual figure is 0.001%
I spent ten years as a commercial diver and a bit of that as a fish buyer (and I started off as a Marine Biologist). To say the seabed recovers after trawling is only partially true. Burrowing creatures can re-establish themselves quickly and Lustyd is right to say that it's not a desert as may be portrayed by some. However it is a desert in comparison to areas that have never been trawled. Look at the pictures taken in Lamlash Bay on the COAST website. The untrawled picture isn't never trawled just not trawled for a few years. Nothing that sticks up really gets much of a chance.


The comparison with farmers fields also has some merits. Except that we have woodlands and areas that are not ploughed. My point was that we need some areas of the seabed which are protected so that there is somewhere for the target species to recover and restock the rest.

I'm not an environmentalist by trade and I am strongly against blanket closures but hoped to engage more people in the dialogue. The environmental lobby is loud and is popular among urban centres where there are lots of votes. We are seen as a wealthy elite with vested interests so it's really important that we engage in whatever is left of the consultation period and don't leave it up to the RYA.

 

[ChrisE]

Farmers fields look devoid of all life after ploughing too. Looks can be deceiving, especially when the hippies are trying to make a point.

I am a diver and can tell you that to the untrained eye the vast majority of the seabed looks devoid of life. To the trained eye though it's a different story and the place is teaming with life. Trawling will temporarily disturb the seabed, but within a month it will be back to normal - fishermen wouldn't still be in business if the destruction was as permanent as made out in eco documentaries. Instead of thinking of them as raping the environment, why not think of them as farmers cultivating a generation of food?

Whilst I agree with your point about the seabed being able to bounce back, to say that trawling has only a temporary effect is a bit wide of the mark.

Around here, Lymington, prolonged use of beam trawlers with the heavy chain mesh that precedes the net, have flattened whole areas of the sea bed, where once there were a series of peaks and troughs in the shingle there are now flat plains. The peaks and troughs provide habitat areas for invertibrates and small fish that in turn attract other species.

It is true that left alone some of the peaks and troughs would return but whilst we're still ploughing the field the bed will remain flat and the creatures they support will not return.

BTW if you don't believe the power of the beam trawls reflect upon the fact that they smash up coffins of those buried at sea releasing the corpses. Now corpses have to be covered in a cement jacket to ensure that they don't return to the coast, as they used to, wrongly triggering an investigation to a death at sea.

 

[fisherman]

We're dealing with different forms of fishing, active and passive, some more aggressive than others. It's a long way from an otter trawl of the 30s or 40s to a modern beam trawl or twin rig. Trawling does to some extent help with repopulating the ground by stirring up food and removing some of the fish to make way for others to move in. Beam trawling is more aggressive, but they still regularly revisit the same areas. Scallop dredging is very aggressive, and once ground is dredged extensively it is only good for scallops, and scallop fishermen for that reason will suggest they are doing some good. What is worrying is when a big scallop boat turned up off the Lizard, and a netter kindly pointed out he was about to tow over some very rough ground, " No problem, we'll knock it flat in two days and then start catching scallops".
Potting is a very passive and self-limiting method: You only catch and keep what is fit and healthy, the rest goes back alive, and when your catch decreases you move on, but the tree huggers seem to have trouble grasping that there are differences between these methods.

 

[Rossynant]

But You are talking here about trawling in areas that had already been trawled for centuries and now are just a desert, compared to natural state. Quite frankly I was astonished when visited UK - this whole country is a kind of desert, lifless. Some grass left. Somebody mentioned tree-huggers above, but where are your trees? Look around...
Do you want some fish? Where do you want fish to live, then?

 

[Searush]

But You are talking here about trawling in areas that had already been trawled for centuries and now are just a desert, compared to natural state. Quite frankly I was astonished when visited UK - this whole country is a kind of desert, lifless. Some grass left. Somebody mentioned tree-huggers above, but where are your trees? Look around...
Do you want some fish? Where do you want fish to live, then?

Which country? In the UK, outside of the towns, there are copses & woods everywhere. Plus a million miles of hedgerow, but they're not much use for fishes are they?

 

[Rossynant]

Seabed around UK is a desert, well known fact of life. Fishes need underwater equivalent of forest.

As for country - I speak from comparison. While boat on Cleddau, in the Pembrokeshire National Park
Yup, UK looks a desert to me. Maybe I should disclose being a biologist, but don't take me for "Green" or other maniac kind. Just I know how nature looks like.
In case You cannot believe - where are your bears? Elk? Wolves? Horses? Lynx? Beavers? Boars? Well, some are reintroduced I hear. Time to reintroduce some fish, aint it?

 

[Whiskey Bravo]

Seabed around UK is a desert, well known fact of life. Fishes need underwater equivalent of forest.

As for country - I speak from comparison. While boat on Cleddau, in the Pembrokeshire National Park
Yup, UK looks a desert to me. Maybe I should disclose being a biologist, but don't take me for "Green" or other maniac kind. Just I know how nature looks like.
In case You cannot believe - where are your bears? Elk? Wolves? Horses? Lynx? Beavers? Boars? Well, some are reintroduced I hear. Time to reintroduce some fish, aint it?

Well it sems most of the Horses are in our dinners, Wolves are bottom half Championship, Lynx in the bathroom. Boars [or is it bores] in Parliament, daren't even mention beavers [oo-er missus]. And HFW is an idiot, he believes wind farms will actually work and save the planet.

 

[Rossynant]

Exactly...
Well, I have boars and deers (hope not wolves ) roaming in backyard at the moment. Not doing any good for orchard, sure, but nice furry companions after all. Don't say 'wind farm' in my presence.

 

[Nicholas123]

Exactly...
Well, I have boars and deers (hope not wolves ) roaming in backyard at the moment. Not doing any good for orchard, sure, but nice furry companions after all. Don't say 'wind farm' in my presence.

Can we send a few people over to you or is conservation just something that other people do?
PS:We could start with the op & other patronizing gits

 

[oldharry]

Seabed around UK is a desert, well known fact of life. Fishes need underwater equivalent of forest.

As for country - I speak from comparison. While boat on Cleddau, in the Pembrokeshire National Park
Yup, UK looks a desert to me. Maybe I should disclose being a biologist, but don't take me for "Green" or other maniac kind. Just I know how nature looks like.
In case You cannot believe - where are your bears? Elk? Wolves? Horses? Lynx? Beavers? Boars? Well, some are reintroduced I hear. Time to reintroduce some fish, aint it?

Funny sort of desert with all this water lying around?

But the difference is we live on an over populated island, with a population density well above that of most other countries. Your bears, boars, wolves etc dont like being too close to people, and it was emigrate or get eaten! Horses too it turns out...

You clearly do not know some of the wilder parts of UK, particularly up north - and I'm not talking Manchester on a saturday night There are still places where you can travel quite a long way without seeing too much of civilization. Manchester included.

But I agree about the fish.

 

[Searush]

We have wild horses on Dartmoor, Brecon Beacons, New forest, amongst other locations. But Wolves & Boar were all exterminated as the population grew & more land became cultivated. I've not heard of Elk in the UK, but we do have many, many places with herds of wild deer of several different species roamimg wild.

Our population is roughly the same as France, but we are a fraction of their size & with significant areas of unpopulated upland which probably makes over 1/3rd of the country virtually uninhabitable due to lack of infrastructure. Having lived & travelled in Poland I am well aware that you have huge tracts of virtually unihabited arable plains plus some large areas of natural forest. We are a much smaller & heavier populated country, but still have some large areas of forest, altho sadly a fair proportion of it was planted with cash crop softwoods after the last war.

 

[Rossynant]

Yep, I know it, in fact should know more of UK ecology than other forumites here since I was taught it, but long ago and forgotten...
But it's impossible to find place in Poland so unpopulated as some in UK. We have no area here without at least few people for km2, while such places are plentifull in UK. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/populationmaps1.jpg
It's just that practically all area of UK was once destroyed and for long time, natural ecosystems vanished. No matter how many trees are planted now - for ages to come it would be not a forest really, just tree plantations.

Actually I live in most populated part of Poland (Krakow) and only reason we still have nature here is because some enclaves of original, natural ecosystems preserved, hard work it was to keep them this way. But there is no other way, once destroyed it will never return. UK lost them.

That is why I wrote above. As far as I remember North Sea and Channel is destroyed in it's entirety, no natural place left - so only hope in leaving some areas alone, in hope they would return to something closer to natural state (or at least get alive again) sometime in future. Many people do not realize how vital that is, simply as they have never seen how it works...

Your bears, boars, wolves etc dont like being too close to people, and it was emigrate or get eaten! Horses too it turns out...

You clearly do not know some of the wilder parts of UK, particularly up north - and I'm not talking Manchester on a saturday night There are still places where you can travel quite a long way without seeing too much of civilization. Manchester included.

well, this is what I mean many people do not realize - after all you may travel long way cross Sahara not seeing much of civilization either. Moreover - try to scare boars, deer or fox and all this menagerie out from my garden, you'll see. Probably you will be chased out instead.
They actually like being close to people, more food around. And they like apples soooo much...

 

[boaterbaz]

In support of fisherman, when I started trawling in the early 70's we were restricted to certain "tows" and could only fish on clean ground. Heavier fishing gear and bigger more powerful boats mean that now trawlers can operate virtually anywhere from bolt tail to lizard. The wrecks,rough ground and hitches that used to restrict us have been towed away and the ground cleared.

I am no biologist but surely the no go patches must have provided safe havens and breeding areas for marine life.