Supertrawlers have continued to catch fish in the UK’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), a new investigation from Greenpeace UK has found.
The charity said trawlers have damaged marine habitats and fish populations, despite the UK government having the powers to stop them since Brexit and committing to protecting at least 30% of UK waters by 2030.
Investigators found that from January 2020 to January 2025, 26 supertrawlers collectively spent nearly 37,000 hours or 4.2 years fishing in 44 of the UK’s offshore MPAs.
On average the vessels spent 7,380 hours fishing in the MPAs each year.
Most of them were foreign-flagged, selling most of their catch overseas, which the charity said made matters worse as there was “little economic benefit to the UK” from this “destructive” fishing method.
All these supertrawlers were operating legally despite the UK government having had the power to ban them from operating in our waters since leaving the EU.
Greenpeace said this represented half a decade of “broken government promises on ocean protection” during which time these protected areas have been “exploited beyond sustainable limits”.
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Supertrawlers are defined as industrial freezer trawlers measuring more than 100m in length. They can catch hundreds of tonnes of pelagic fish species like herring and blue whiting in a day.
The charity raised concerns that the size and catch capability of these vessels meant they also caught large quantities of non-target animals or bycatch, including dolphins and sharks.
“The government is failing our protected seas,” said Erica Finnie, oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK. “Marine Protected Areas should be places for fish, marine biodiversity and habitats to rest and recover from the damage caused by human activities.
“The government is making a mockery of our MPAs by allowing these places to be routinely fished – despite having had the powers to ban industrial fishing vessels from protected waters since we left the EU.
“By allowing industrial fishing to continue in our protected areas, the government is degrading entire MPAs from the north of Scotland to the south of Cornwall,” she added. “To be taken seriously as a leader on ocean protection, the UK government must ban supertrawlers, and other types of industrial fishing, from our Marine Protected Areas.”
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The MPAs which Greenpeace investigators found to be most heavily fished by supertrawlers, in the last five years, were off the coast of Scotland, such as Wyville Thomson Ridge, West of Scotland, Central Fladen, Geikie Slide and Hebridean Slope, and Faroe-Shetland Sponge Belt. Pobie Bank Reef, West Shetland Shelf, Seas off Foula, and the Barra Fan and Hebrides Terrace Seamount were also highly fished by supertrawlers.
Greenpeace UK’s investigation found only 10 MPAs accounted for more than 80% of all supertrawler fishing time calculated between 2020 and 2025, which it said illustrated the immense pressure some MPAs are under.
The charity is calling on the government to ban industrial fishing in UK waters to make sure it delivers on its promise to protect 30% of waters domestically and ratify the Global Ocean Treaty.
“The abject failure to protect our most sensitive marine habitats is a scandal that’s lasted five years too long,” said Felix Lane, political campaigner at Greenpeace.
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