The MPA Legal Coalition is an alliance of European environmental organisations that are collaborating to enforce existing EU nature laws inside marine protected areas. In this blog, representatives from the coalition explain how strategic legal action can help ensure Europe’s protected seas are genuinely protected from destructive activity.
The newly formed MPA Legal Coalition is driving strategic legal action to help ensure Europe’s marine protected areas deliver effective protection for ocean life.
The European Union has some of the strongest nature laws in the world. Yet across Europe’s seas, too many areas designated for protection still allow activities that damage the very habitats and species they were created to safeguard. Sometimes these designations only really protect a small part of the site or a limited range of activities.
Bottom trawling is one of the most destructive forms of fishing and drags heavy metal gear and nets across the seafloor, but it continues in many marine protected areas. These include sites in the Natura 2000 network that are supposed to be protected by European conservation laws.
Read the full article here.
