UK and France pledge to ban bottom trawling in protected areas – lawyers call for enforcement 

9 June 2025 

At the opening of the third United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC3) today in Nice, the United Kingdom pledged to ban bottom trawling—one of the most destructive fishing practices—in 41 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) while France proposed restrictions in fewer MPAs.  

Environmental lawyers welcomed these commitments as a vital legal and ecological milestone, calling for swift implementation and enforcement of these measures. 

UK Environment Secretary Steve Reed announced a ban on bottom trawling covering more than 30,000 square kilometres – roughly half of English MPAs. This decision represents one of the most significant steps to date in aligning national fisheries management with international obligations to protect marine biodiversity. 

Meanwhile, France announced strict protection measures for 4% of its mainland waters (15,000 square kilometres), banning harmful human activities - including bottom trawling - in these sensitive areas. But the announcement falls short of implementing a comprehensive ban on bottom trawling across all Marine Protected Areas. 

ClientEarth CEO Laura Clarke said: 

“This is an important turning point. For years we've argued that allowing bottom trawling in MPAs violates both the spirit and the letter of the law.  

“We welcome these pledges at UNOC – and we would like to see more of them. We also need to see these bans effectively enforced. Urgent action is needed: protecting our ocean is a crucial pathway towards a healthy planet.” 

Sweden and Greece have already pledged to ban or strongly restrict bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas - so momentum is building. ClientEarth is calling on all European countries to fully enforce the law and stop destructive bottom trawling in MPAs.  

Clarke added: 

“Science and law are both clear that this practice must end entirely in sensitive protected areas in Europe. As UNOC3 begins, pressure is mounting on all nations to match rhetoric with action—and to ensure that protected areas are not just paper parks, but genuinely safe havens for marine life.”  

Today's announcements follow a wave of legal action across Europe, led by ClientEarth. Lawsuits in France, Spain, and the Netherlands, and formal complaints to the European Commission against Denmark, Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the Netherlands, have highlighted the widespread failure to restrict destructive fishing in MPAs. 

ENDS 

Notes to editors: 

UNOC 

A ClientEarth delegation is attending UNOC, including ClientEarth CEO Laura Clarke. Please contact Diane Vandesmet for interviews: +32493412289; dvandesmet@clientearth.org.  

To know more about our events and delegation:  ClientEarth at UNOC | ClientEarth 

For more information on ClientEarth priorities for UNOC, read our policy briefing.  

Marine Protected Areas  

A few weeks ago, a landmark ruling by the EU General Court reaffirmed that MPAs must be effectively safeguarded from harmful fishing practices, including bottom trawling.  

Recent scientific research confirms the urgency: nearly 60% of EU MPAs are currently trawled, and no EU country has a comprehensive plan to phase out bottom trawling in these protected zones. 

Oceana released a study, revealing 17,000 hours of bottom trawling took place in French MPAs in 2024, carried out by boats from France and several other European nations. 

Bottom trawling creates huge societal costs in terms of ocean health and climate impacts and is also incredibly wasteful - globally, a huge proportion of what’s caught by bottom trawling is thrown back, dead. Studies suggest that has amounted to hundreds of millions of tonnes of wasted fish in the last 60 years.   

NGOs have reacted to the release of the Ocean Pact on June 5, calling for more concrete measures to address key issues such as bottom trawling in Marine Protected Areas.  

A factsheet on bottom trawling and the legal cases is available here.