80% of EU marine protected areas are ineffective

Most European marine protected areas, established to protect species and habitats, will fail to meet their conservation objectives, as they offer only “marginal” protection against industrial activities such as dredging, mining and bottom trawling, according to a study.

Due to the low level of protection in 86% of marine protected areas, the EU is far from achieving its 2030 biodiversity targets aimed at reducing the risk of species extinction, according to researchers in a study published in the journal One Earth . The EU aims to protect 30% of its seas by 2030, with 10% to be “strictly” protected from harmful activities.

“This is the first assessment of the state of protection,” said Juliette Aminian-Biquet, the study’s lead author and researcher at the University of the Algarve, the Portuguese Centre for Marine Sciences. “It shows that we are still at the very beginning when it comes to protecting our oceans.”

The study concludes that achieving the EU’s strict 10% target for marine protection requires “radical changes” in the regulation of activities within marine protected areas.

Most marine protected areas in the EU are found in Germany (45% of national waters), with France and Belgium not far behind.

The highest degree of “strong protection”, also defined as highly or fully protected areas — such as marine protected areas that allow no extractive activities or only rare fishing — was found in the Mediterranean and the Baltic Sea. The European country that performs best in curbing destructive activities in its protected areas is Slovenia, although the total number of marine protected areas in its waters is relatively small compared to other countries, according to the report.

The low level of protection in most marine protected areas is a result of the “flexible” nature of EU directives, according to the researchers. “For marine protected areas to deliver the expected social and ecological benefits, their role in regulating human activities to limit their negative impacts should be called into question,” the authors state.

“It is extremely difficult to get the EU to take action on this issue, as any regulation would need to be legally binding,” said Aminian-Biquet. “It will be up to individual states or regional authorities to take measures to achieve these goals.”

A spokesperson for the European Commission said: “The Commission takes note of the recent publication and its key summary findings,” adding that it had called on member states to manage all marine protected areas in line with the relevant directives and the EU commitment to protect 30% of marine and coastal areas by 2030. They added that the EU Ocean Action Plan 2023 recommends that member states phase out bottom trawling in marine protected areas by 2030.

The phase-out was rejected by the European Parliament in January, and most EU states have yet to take action against bottom trawling, with the exception of Greece, which became the first country this year to ban bottom trawling in marine protected areas, and Sweden.

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