Marine / Supertrawler statistics a ‘red herring’ as Greenpeace calls for ban
SUPERTRAWLERS – vessels measuring more than 100m in length – spent an average of 640 hours fishing in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) around Shetland in the last five years.
An investigation from Greenpeace UK found that 26 supertrawlers, originating from countries such as Germany, Poland, Russia and the Netherlands, had spent significant time fishing in MPAs around the UK.
Between 2020 and 2025 these vessels fished for 3,202 hours in MPAs around Shetland, averaging around 640 hours a year.
That equates to 27 full days, almost a full month.
While Greenpeace has used the data to call for the vessels to be banned from these areas, a local fishing figure has called the statistics a “red herring”.
Shetland Fishermen’s Association executive officer Daniel Lawson said MPAs were not, and had never been, areas that were closed off for fishing activity.
But he said there was a “separate debate to be had” about supertrawlers’ access to UK waters.
Marine Protected Areas were designed by the Scottish Government to protect Scotland’s seas, marine life and habitats from damage caused by human activities.
There are more than 240 MPAs in Scotland, ranging in purpose from conservation to research, with some set up to protect heritage areas and historic sites like shipwrecks.
In some MPAs there are restrictions on fishing.
Greenpeace found MPAS off Shetland, including the Faroe-Shetland Sponge, West Shetland Shelf and seas off Foula, were among the most heavily fished by supertrawlers.
It has said though all these supertrawlers were operating legally, the UK Government still had the power to ban them from operating in our waters.
And it has accused them of “half a decade of broken government promises”, adding MPAs – designed to protect ocean habitats and species – had been “exploited beyond sustainable limits”.
“The majority of these vessels were foreign-flagged, selling most of their catch overseas,” Greenpeace UK said.
“The relative speed with which Russian-flagged supertrawlers left our MPAs in 2023, shows that it is possible to remove supertrawlers from UK MPAs where there is the political will to do so.
“They [supertrawlers] can catch hundreds of tonnes of pelagic fish species like herring and blue whiting in a day using enormous nets.”
“Mackerel, one of the key targets for these vessels, has had catch limits set far in excess of scientific advice over the last decade.”
It added that this “hoovering up of fish” also “gives little economic benefit to the UK”.
“Supertrawlers’ large-scale and destructive industrial fishing methods affect the health and resilience of the whole marine environment including the fish stocks available to the UK’s small-scale fishing fleet, which does land almost all of its catch in the UK,” it said.
However Shetland Fishermen’s Association executive officer Lawson said Greenpeace’s investigation into fishing within MPAs was “something of a red herring”.
“There is a separate debate to be had around these vessels’ access to UK waters in general, and certainly fishing crews in Shetland would prefer not to see a Margiris or a Helen Mary fishing regularly around the isles as they currently are permitted to do,” he said.
The Lithuanian-registered Margiris, which is 143m long, is one of the biggest supertrawlers on earth, and was found by Greenpeace to be one of the five most frequent visitors to the UK offshore MPAs.
Despite that, Lawson said there had been a “deliberate and consistent attempt by anti-fishing campaigns to warp the public’s understanding of what MPAs are intended for since their establishment in 2014.”
“Marine Protected Areas are not, and never have been, sites which are universally or automatically closed to all fishing activity,” he said.
“Instead, MPAs were designed to protect specific marine features, habitats or species – some of which may be impacted by some forms of fishing, but others which are not at all.
“Therefore every MPA is different, and so are any fishing restrictions that may exist – or come to exist – within each individual MPA.”
Lawson added that the Scottish fishing industry had worked with the Scottish Government to design and designate the MPA network.
However Greenpeace has called on the UK Government to ban supertrawlers and “other destructive fishing vessels” from the UK’s MPAs.
It said a petition calling for such a ban had been signed by 750,000 people in recent years.
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