Helen Mary Supertrawler in the North Sea (Image: Suzanne Plunkett / Greenpeace)
Ministers have failed to use their Brexit powers to ban foreign supertrawlers from damaging the UK’s precious marine habitats, campaigners have said.
The monster vessels have spent 7,380 hours fishing in Britain’s marine protected areas (MPAs) every year on average since leaving the EU, an investigation by Greenpeace found.
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Erica Finnie, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The government is failing our protected seas. MPAs should be places for fish, marine biodiversity and habitats to rest and recover from the damage caused by human activities.
“But the government is making a mockery of our MPAs by allowing these places to be routinely fished - despite having had the powers to ban industrial fishing vessels from protected waters since we left the EU.
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“By allowing industrial fishing to continue in our protected areas, the government is degrading entire MPAs from the north of Scotland to the south of Cornwall.”
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Campaigners have demanded that the Government ban supertrawlers, and other types of industrial fishing, from MPAs.
The supertrawlers fishing in UK MPAs land the vast majority of their catch abroad so this hoovering of fish gives little economic benefit to the UK, campaigners said.
Investigators found that 26 supertrawlers spent significant time fishing in 44 of the UK’s offshore MPAs.
The five supertrawlers they identified as having spent the most time fishing in UK offshore MPAs between 2020 and 2025 were Willem van der Zwan (flagged to Netherlands), Margiris (Lithuania), Helen Mary (Germany), Sch 81 Carolien (Netherlands) and Afrika (Netherlands).
The Margiris (143m) and Willem van der Zwan (142.5m) are two of the biggest supertrawlers on Earth.
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Felix Lane, political campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The abject failure to protect our most sensitive marine habitats is a scandal that's lasted five years too long.
“The Labour government must now ban destructive industrial fishing in our precious marine environments so it can deliver on its promises to protect 30% of waters domestically.”
Supertrawlers are massive industrial freezer trawlers measuring more than 328ft in length.
They can catch hundreds of tonnes of pelagic fish species like herring and blue whiting in a day using enormous nets.
The vessels catch large quantities of non-target animals, or bycatch, including dolphins and porpoises as well as sharks, seals and rays.
Campaigners at Oceana UK earlier this month blasted the Government for failing to ban foreign vessels from highly destructive bottom trawling in the UK’s marine sanctuaries despite Labour’s election pledge.
The Government's pre-ballot promise of a blanket ban appears to have “evaporated” and been replaced with “weaker words and worrying delays”, they said.
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A spokesman for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “For too long precious species and habitats in our oceans have been under threat and we are committed to banning destructive bottom trawling where it is damaging our protected seabed habitats.
“Most Marine Protected Areas are designated to protect seabed habitats, such as reef and sediment habitats, which these large trawlers operating in the open waters are unlikely to damage.
“We are also carefully considering the next steps for protecting our Marine Protected Areas and have commissioned a review of the MPA network in English seas to have the best approach to nature recovery, biodiversity and climate change.”