News -

Danish fishers and conservationists jointly propose marine reserves

After months of negotiations, the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, DN, and the Danish Fishermen Producer Organisation, DFPO, present a historical proposal for ensuring a significant protection of the Danish sea. The proposal will ensure 10 percent untouched sea - no take Marine Protected Areas - in the North Sea, the Skagerrak, and the Baltic Sea, and is now handed over to the Danish government ahead of the Marine Spatial Plan negotiations. Decades of trench warfare between green organisations and the fishing industry is now put on hold. At least if it is up to the two big interest organisations.

Month long negotiations between the chairman of the Danish Fishermen Producer Organisation, Svend-Erik Andersen, and the president of the Danish Society for Nature Conservation, Maria Reumert Gjerding, have paved the way for a historical agreement, in which nature and business interests have bent towards each other and formed a detailed proposal for how Denmark can live up to the international targets of ensuring the designation of 10 percent untouched sea in the Danish North Sea, Skagerrak, and the Baltic Sea around Bornholm.

According to marine research, large, coherent, untouched sea areas without fisheries or any other commercial exploitation is one of the most important tools in order to restore the rich nature at the bottom of the sea.

The proposal is presented prior to the negotiations on the first Danish Marine Spatial Plan and second Marine Strategy, which will ensure the overall planning of all the Danish sea areas. At the same time, there is a process under the auspices of The EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive regarding the designation of protected marine areas in the North Sea, Skagerrak, and the Baltic Sea around Bornholm.

Read the full story and download the proposal at FishSec.org

Topics

  • Agriculture, fishing

Categories

  • baltic
  • kattegatt
  • baltic sea
  • skagerack
  • fisheries
  • marine spatial planning
  • msfd
  • marine strategy framework directive
  • marine directive
  • no take zones
  • no take zone
  • bottom trawling
  • demersal trawling
  • dfpo
  • danish fisheries
  • danish nature

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