EU marine protection areas too weak, say scientists
The EU’s marine protected areas (MPAs) provide weak protection against human activities such as mining and bottom trawling and are not helping the bloc reach its 2030 target to protect 30% of its seas, according to a recent scientific study.
“For EU MPAs to provide the expected social and ecological benefits, their role in regulating human activities to limit their negative impacts should be questioned broadly”, say the authors of a scientific study published in August in the journal One Earth.
The EU and its Member States have designated MPAs as areas where the protection of marine biodiversity is a priority.
However, the study finds that most of them provide insufficient protection to meet the EU’s conservation objectives.
The EU’s 2030 Biodiversity Strategy aims to achieve 30% coverage of marine protected areas (MPAs), with 10% under strict protection by region.
While MPAs covered 11.4% of EU waters in 2022, only 1.5% of these areas – or just 0.2% of total EU waters – are subject to strong protection (total and high protection), according to the study.
At the other end of the scale, “86% of (…) EU waters covered by MPAs showed light, minimal, or no protection from the most harmful human activities, such as dredging, mining, or the most damaging fishing gears.”
The highest MPA coverage was in Germany (45.3% of national waters), followed by France (38.9%) and Belgium (37.9%), while the lowest was in Ireland (2.4%), Portugal (4.5%), Greece (4.7%) and Slovenia (5.1%).
The Mediterranean and Baltic Seas have a higher surface area of strong protection than the North-East Atlantic Ocean, while no strong protection exists in the Black Sea.
Non-binding regulations
These results are explained, scientists say, by the “flexible” nature of the EU’s Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the Birds and Habitats Directives. Both Directives guide the bloc’s MPA policies.
“The limited specificity and voluntary requirements of other international agreements, such as the Regional Seas Conventions and the Aichi Targets, may also have contributed to low levels of protection”, the authors add.
And even with EU flexibility, member states have shown “recurrent non-compliance.”
The authors go on to warn that “reaching the EU’s 10% strict protection target will require radical changes to the regulation of activities in EU MPAs.”
The Commission points to Member States
Contacted by Euractiv, the Commission “takes note of the very recent publication and its key summary findings,” and point out that it “called Member States to effectively manage all MPAs, in order to achieve the objectives set in relevant EU legislation (Birds Directive, Habitats Directive, Marine Strategy Framework Directive) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.”
The Executive added that the 2023 EU Marine Action Plan calls on member states to implement actions such as “phasing out mobile bottom fishing” in all EU MPAs by 2030.”
However, the proposed phase out was rejected by the European Parliament in January 2023, and a 16 April report by NGOs Seas At Risk and Oceana found that bottom fishing is still widely practiced in 90% of MPAs.
With some exceptions, such as Greece and Sweden, most member states have still not set out national measures on bottom fishing.
“It now really depends on member states to address threats to marine ecosystems through different tools, including strongly protected MPAs and means to manage current conflicts”, the report’s authors concluded.
NGOs: EU countries still bottom fishing in protected areas despite recommendations
According to an EU action plan, member states were due to publish by 31 March a roadmap for achieving marine protected areas, including the phasing out of trawling fishing by 2030 but NGOs say the practice is still widely used, according to a report published on Tuesday (16 April).
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