The Scottish Wildlife Trust is one of 19 UK conservation groups along with 16 EU environmental organisations, who have announced their support for the UK and Scottish Government’s committing to closing Scottish and English North Sea waters to sandeel fishing, in the face of EU opposition to the action. We are calling on the EU to follow suit on the UK’s world-leading action on sandeel fishery closures rather than attempting to block them.

Read the full statement here.

The UK Government announced the closing of all Scottish waters and the English North Sea to sandeel fishing in January 2024, and this came into force on 26th March 2024. The closure is welcomed as a major step forward in protecting at risk seabirds and marine mammals and is essential to protecting the future of sandeel reliant UK fishing stocks. Yet, on the 16th April, the EU Commission requested consultation with the UK to discuss the legitimacy of the closures under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement, the trade agreement that was put in place following the UK’s exit from the European Union. The challenge has left conservation groups concerned that the UK will be forced to backtrack on its progress as a result. Read more about the EU challenge to the UK ban on sandeel fishing here.

The UK is failing on 11 out of 15 marine indicators for Good Environmental Status (GES), performing particularly badly on seabird populations.[1] So the UK’s positive moves on sandeels, which would benefit vulnerable seabirds, has been particularly welcomed by marine experts as a step toward improving GES.

Nature experts are warning that the EU should follow suit on taking measures to protect the marine environment to meet its own GES commitments. Very few EU nations are currently meeting GES, with approximately 33% of seabird populations in Europe in decline and 22% regarded as ‘threatened’.[2] Yet despite the importance of sandeels to European seabirds no such fishing closures are planned, with campaigners calling the EU out on this.[3]

[1] The Good Environmental Status indicators fall under the under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in the EU and were retained through the UK Marine Strategy.

[2] Source: BirdLife International, 2015, European Red List of Birds, Publications Office of the European Union, LuxembourgSeabirds are defined as pelagic feeding and surface water feeding, from 2018 data for pelagic feeding 12 EU member states achieved GES, 11 did not reach GES & 18 were not assessed. For surface water 7 achieved GES, 14 did not and 17 were not assessed.

[3] The Marine Conservation Society, Seas At Risk and Oceana recently published analysis of commercial fishing data, concluding that bottom trawling was still taking place in 90% of offshore EU marine protected areas, despite the 2023 EU Marine Action Plan that calls for phasing the practice out by 2030.