From the Sunday Times, News section P11, today, March 11th 2007:
Fishing to be banished in network of marine parks-News-UK-TimesOnline
"BRITAIN is planning to set up a string of marine conservation areas where commercial fishing will be banned up to 200 miles from the coastline.
...
Once the proposals have become law, a powerful new Marine Management Organisation (MMO) will designate the zones in which all fishing and other “extractive” activity, including oil wells, will be banned.
...
The aim is to create areas where creatures ranging from tiny corals and shellfish to the largest basking sharks can flourish, recreating the complex food chains that have been destroyed by industrial fishing.
“This is the biggest change to marine law in a century,” Bradshaw said. “It will at last enable us to manage our seas properly, including protecting marine life, while allowing development where appropriate.”
His move will be greeted with enthusiasm by conservation groups. A study by the Marine Conservation Society warned that industrial fishing had turned swathes of the seabed around Britain into a lifeless desert.
...
As an interim measure, Bradshaw will announce eight new “special areas of conservation” (SACs) within the 200-mile zone; but he will not have the power to ban fishing in these until the bill has been passed.
There are already 63 SACs but all are close inshore. The new ones will be larger and further out to sea, including areas such as the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, the North Norfolk Sandbanks and the Darwin Mounds coral reef off northwest Scotland, where trawling is already banned by the EU.
Fishermen are dismayed. Jim Linstead, chief executive of the Eastern England Fish Producers Organisation, predicted that the new agencies proposed by Bradshaw meant there would soon be more civil servants than fishermen. “Marine reserves will be a disaster for the fishing industry,” he said. “Eventually we will be unable to enter the reserves, banned from the windfarms and left unable to make a living.”
To head off the European fishing lobby, Bradshaw argues that his power to extend conservation areas derives from the European birds and habitats directive, which was issued in 1989 and has so far only partly been enacted into British law.
Many of his proposals will be controversial, especially a plan to give sea anglers a stronger role on the sea fisheries committees that manage local fisheries. These have been dominated by commercial fishermen but Bradshaw has decided to change this in recognition of the fact that leisure angling has become a more important source of revenue for many coastal communities.
He is also proposing a “light touch” licensing system for marine development, aimed at making it far easier to obtain planning permission for wind turbines.
... "
Fishing to be banished in network of marine parks-News-UK-TimesOnline
"BRITAIN is planning to set up a string of marine conservation areas where commercial fishing will be banned up to 200 miles from the coastline.
...
Once the proposals have become law, a powerful new Marine Management Organisation (MMO) will designate the zones in which all fishing and other “extractive” activity, including oil wells, will be banned.
...
The aim is to create areas where creatures ranging from tiny corals and shellfish to the largest basking sharks can flourish, recreating the complex food chains that have been destroyed by industrial fishing.
“This is the biggest change to marine law in a century,” Bradshaw said. “It will at last enable us to manage our seas properly, including protecting marine life, while allowing development where appropriate.”
His move will be greeted with enthusiasm by conservation groups. A study by the Marine Conservation Society warned that industrial fishing had turned swathes of the seabed around Britain into a lifeless desert.
...
As an interim measure, Bradshaw will announce eight new “special areas of conservation” (SACs) within the 200-mile zone; but he will not have the power to ban fishing in these until the bill has been passed.
There are already 63 SACs but all are close inshore. The new ones will be larger and further out to sea, including areas such as the Dogger Bank in the North Sea, the North Norfolk Sandbanks and the Darwin Mounds coral reef off northwest Scotland, where trawling is already banned by the EU.
Fishermen are dismayed. Jim Linstead, chief executive of the Eastern England Fish Producers Organisation, predicted that the new agencies proposed by Bradshaw meant there would soon be more civil servants than fishermen. “Marine reserves will be a disaster for the fishing industry,” he said. “Eventually we will be unable to enter the reserves, banned from the windfarms and left unable to make a living.”
To head off the European fishing lobby, Bradshaw argues that his power to extend conservation areas derives from the European birds and habitats directive, which was issued in 1989 and has so far only partly been enacted into British law.
Many of his proposals will be controversial, especially a plan to give sea anglers a stronger role on the sea fisheries committees that manage local fisheries. These have been dominated by commercial fishermen but Bradshaw has decided to change this in recognition of the fact that leisure angling has become a more important source of revenue for many coastal communities.
He is also proposing a “light touch” licensing system for marine development, aimed at making it far easier to obtain planning permission for wind turbines.
... "
