Successes

Marine protected habitats and species – As part of the campaign to stop destructive trawling, we are pushing European countries to protect sensitive marine areas, such as coral reefs, seamounts, maerls, seagrass meadows, etc. We are contacting scientists working on these issues and presenting proposals to European governments to protect biogenic reefs. Public opinion is starting to become aware of these ecosystems and the need to conserve them. We are happy to report that The Darwin Mounds, a spectacular coral reef off Scotland’s north-west coast, won permanent protection from the threat of destruction by deep-sea trawlers. The European Fisheries Council, meeting in Brussels on March 22nd 2004, agreed to impose a permanent ban on deep-water bottom trawling in the area to preserve the fragile marine ecosystem hailed as Scotland’s answer to the Great Barrier Reef. That decision was reached after intense lobbying from Oceana and WWF. The mounds cover 38 square miles, more than 3,000 ft under the sea, 120 miles off Cape Wrath, Sutherland. They were discovered only six years ago and are regarded as Britain’s finest cold-water coral reef.