Much of the seabed around the UK has been turned into a lifeless desert, say Malcolm Hunter

A study published last year, in the journal Science, identified the marine environment around the UK as among the most degraded in the world, as a result of human activities. Many fish stocks are close to commercial, or even actually extinction and much of the sea bed has been turned into a lifeless desert, as a result of the damage done by activities such as bottom trawling and aggregate dredging.

The state of fish stocks is well illustrated by that most iconic of fish, cod. Maximum sustainable catches of fish are achieved when populations are kept at around 50 per cent of their unexploited level, but North Sea cod stocks have now been reduced to just two to three per cent of what they once were and few fish are now living long enough to spawn.

Horse trading means that attempts to control over fishing through catch limits are constantly undermined by limits being set higher than scientific advice recommends and such limits do not prevent more fish being caught anyway, they just lead to a lot of fish being thrown back dead, where limits for that species have been exceeded. Catch limits also fail to stop the physical damage done to the environment, by activities such as bottom trawling.

What have been shown to work, in other parts of the world, are marine reserves, where all commercial fishing and other extractive activities are banned. Reserves allow fish stocks and the marine environment in general to recover. In the long term this actually benefits fisheries, in that reserves maintain a reservoir of fish able to reach spawning age and repopulate surrounding areas, where fishing is still allowed.

The Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, in its report Turning the Tide, concluded that a minimum of 30 per cent of UK waters need to be turned into an ecologically coherent network of "no take" marine reserves, out to the 200-mile limit of our Exclusive Economic Zone. The Marine and Coastal Access Bill, currently before Parliament, probably represents the last opportunity to do something before it is too late and it does contain some provisions to protect the marine environment. Unfortunately, as it stands, the Bill falls a long way short of what is needed. It is for this reason that I have got involved in the campaign to get the Bill strengthened.

If people want to help this campaign, they can do so by e-mailing their MP, urging them to sign Early Day Motion 337, which calls on the Government to implement the Royal Commission's recommendations in full; and urging them to support amendments to the Bill, to place a duty on the Government to do so. This can be done via the campaign website below. This site and our local Friends of the Earth site also have a lot more information on the issue and about how to get more involved in the campaign.

www.marinereserves.org.uk/mp/.

www.leicesterfoe.org.uk/marine.html

Malcolm Hunter is a member of Leicester Friends of the Earth and the Marinet UK Marine Reserves Campaign.