The ban on deep-sea bottom trawling enters into force today

12 January 2017

London, January 12, 2017

The new deep-sea fishing regulation which incepts the ban on deep-sea bottom trawling beyond 800 meters in depth comes into force on Thursday 12 January 2017. After a long and painful reform process, the European regulation (EU)2016/2336 finally replaces the former legislation (EC)2347/2002, which had become obsolete and ineffective in protecting deep-sea ecosystems from the ravages of industrial fishing.

The regulation coming into force today marks a huge improvement over the previous legal framework. BLOOM and the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, which jointly campaigned to end the systematic and legal destruction of vulnerable deep-sea habitats and species, produced a table comparing the old and new regulations and the UN resolutions for fishing on the high seas.

> Click here to see the table

Coincidently, the deep-sea trawl ban comes into force in all European waters the very same day that BLOOM founder Claire Nouvian received the Boat Magazine’s Ocean Award in partnership with the Blue Marine Foundation in London for her fight against destructive deep-sea fishing. Nouvian reacted by saying: “this tremendous outcome is due to the massive support of citizens, researchers, media and politicians which mobilized by our side to end the inacceptable destruction of our common heritage.”

⇨ Read here the illustrated chronology of the main stages of the deep-sea fisheries regulation reform (in french)

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BLOOM thanks its collaborators of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and The Pew Charitable Trusts without which this international campaign would not have been possible.

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Further reading

The adopted legislation only applies to European waters and the international waters of the Central-East Atlantic (see our map), whereas the European Commission’s initial proposal, strengthened by the European Parliament, applied to all of the North-East Atlantic.