Defending marine wildlife in Europe

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are vital for the health of our oceans, playing a critical role in protecting marine habitats and iconic species, the ocean’s ability to protect against the worst impacts of global warming, and combating overfishing. MPAs should be wildlife sanctuaries, yet across the EU, they are being stripped of life and habitats are being destroyed by some of the most destructive fishing methods, including bottom trawling. This practice is taking place extensively within Natura 2000 sites, the EU’s network of protected areas.

Despite commitments by EU Member States to protect 30% of their seas by 2030, the reality is alarming. Currently, only 13.7% of EU seas are protected. Even when MPAs exist, they often lack effective regulation and management, leaving them little more than lines on a map.

The stakes are high: most protected marine habitats in the EU are not in a favourable conservation state, and bottom trawling is a major contributor to marine biodiversity loss.

Estimate of trawling activity in Natura 2000 MPAs (in apparent fishing hours, cumulative 2021–2024). Darker shades of orange represent more heavily trawled MPAs. Proportions were calculated for exclusively marine sites with at least 10 hours of fishing on average per year over the same period (sources: GFW, EEA, WDPA).

Bottom trawling is one of the most widespread and damaging activities affecting the seabed and its habitats. Currently, 79% of the EU’s coastal seabed is physically disturbed, primarily due to this practice, with a quarter of the EU’s coastal area likely having lost its natural seabed habitats.

• Weighted nets and rigid structures are dragged along the seabed, scooping up everything in their path.

• This causes long-term damage to seabed habitats and ecosystem functions.

• It’s responsible for 92% of all reported fish discards in the EU.

It defeats the purpose of MPAs, and allowing it to continue in them is incompatible with environmental protection laws. That is why we are taking legal action to stop it, prevent further damage to the most vulnerable and wildlife-rich ecosystems, and initiate restoration efforts.

The Habitats and Birds Directives set standards for nature protection across the 27 EU Member States. The Natura 2000 network of protected areas, designed to safeguard vulnerable species and habitats, plays a key role in putting these standards into practice. It requires Member States to set - and act on - science-based targets to protect wildlife and their habitats within the sites.

Member States must prevent damage to natural habitats and species, thoroughly assessing any activity that could harm them before granting permission. This includes fishing restrictions.

Despite this clear legal framework, many sites are still vulnerable. Only 4% of Natura 2000 sites have the necessary fisheries management measures in place to help meet their conservation targets.

There is an urgent need to turn marine ‘paper parks' into fully protected areas that deliver real ecological, climate and social benefits. Prohibiting bottom trawling in MPAs is also about ensuring a sustainable future for fisheries, which ultimately rely on healthy oceans.

EJF is using the law to achieve this, through legal action against selected EU governments and their authorities, and encouraging the EU institutions to act against Member States that disregard EU laws. By ensuring EU nature laws are properly applied, we plan to stop bottom trawling in EU MPAs for good.

France has been a driving force in international negotiations on protecting the ocean and marine biodiversity, and it has established a network of MPAs covering over 33% of its waters. However, only about 5% protected marine species and habitats are in a favourable state.

Cumulative fishing pressure in hours/km2 in French Natura 2000 MPAs, 2016–2025.

In France, trawling is almost completely unconstrained within MPAs. Over the last decade, a total of 2 million trawling hours were recorded within French marine Natura 2000 sites, causing long-lasting damage to a wide array of marine habitats and species.

EJF’s lawsuits target the deterioration of marine habitats caused by bottom trawling in two marine protected areas, Chausey and Bancs des Flandres, where France is failing to meet its obligations to protect marine habitats under EU law.

In June 2026, the administrative court ruled that the measures currently in force to regulate the use of towed fishing nets within the three-nautical-mile coastal zone of the Bancs des Flandres site are insufficient to restore protected marine habitats to a favourable conservation status. It ordered the French authorities to strengthen applicable regulations within nine months.

To further strengthen the ongoing legal intervention in Chausey, EJF launched the Chausey Trésor Rose campaign, as well as a film, to raise awareness on the need to protect maerl beds, a thousand-year-old pink coral present in the Bay of Granville.

On 9 June 2026, EJF, together with representatives of Manche Nature, met with EU Commissioner for Fisheries and Oceans Costas Kadis and Minister for the Sea and Fisheries Catherine Chabaud to press for urgent action to strengthen protection of this fragile marine habitat.

Despite Chausey's status as a marine protected area, and European-level protections under Natura 2000, the OSPAR Convention and EU biodiversity commitments, maerl habitats continue to be degraded by bottom-towed fishing activities.

Germany faces a distinct set of challenges in regulating fishing within its Natura 2000 sites, rooted in its federal governance structure and socio-economic considerations. The Wadden Sea is a protected coastal ecosystem that provides important habitats for marine life and migratory birds. Its seafloor habitats, including sandbanks and mussel beds, support diverse food webs and provide nursery and feeding grounds for fish and other wildlife. Yet despite its protected status as a national park, UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site and part of the Natura 2000 network, destructive bottom trawling continues inside protected marine areas.

The key issue is that this activity continues without the legally required environmental impact assessment. Despite decades of scientific evidence showing that bottom trawling can damage seafloor habitats and affect marine wildlife, authorities have failed to carry out the assessment needed to determine its impacts and establish effective protective measures.

This is now the subject of legal action. Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH), with the support of EJF, has filed a lawsuit calling for an environmental impact assessment of bottom trawling and effective protection of the Wadden Sea. The case highlights a fundamental failure in the protection of Natura 2000 sites: legal protection means little if activities capable of damaging protected habitats are allowed to continue without their impacts being properly assessed.

Despite evidence that German brown shrimp trawling can disturb seafloor habitats, proposals to restrict it face strong pushback. The local fleet is often defended, citing its cultural importance and tourism appeal. Fresh “Nordseekrabben” are sold as a regional delicacy, although by the time they land on our plates, they have come a long way: brown shrimp often travel thousands of kilometres to be peeled by low-wage workers in countries such as Morocco. Pumped full of preservatives, they return to Germany.

The final product has lost its true local freshness: the value generated by the shrimp along the supply chain is not retained by local fishing communities. Much of the German catch is purchased by a few Dutch-owned wholesalers, who transport it to Morocco for peeling, before re-importing and marketing the product to European markets.

This means that while German coastal communities bear many of the environmental costs, significant control over the catch's commercial value lies with companies based outside Germany.

EJF and its partners, Blue Marine Foundation, ClientEarth, DMA, and Deutsche Umwelthilfe e.V, have also submitted a legal complaint in April 2025, calling on the European Commission to initiate infringement proceedings against France, Germany and Italy for breaching their obligations under EU nature laws and leaving ‘protected’ marine areas open to destructive fishing practices.

The complaint presents extensive evidence showing that bottom trawling continues unchecked across marine protected areas in all three countries, causing severe damage to sensitive habitats such as reefs, seagrass beds, and sandbanks. The scale of the problem is staggering: in addition to 77% of France’s marine Natura 2000 sites, bottom trawling is taking place in 85% of Germany’s and 44% of Italy’s sites, areas that are supposed to be safe havens for wildlife.

One year after the submission of the complaint, EJF and partners launched the MPA Legal Coalition, bringing together environmental organisations working to improve the implementation and enforcement of marine conservation law across Europe. By coordinating legal action across the EU, sharing scientific evidence and supporting strategic litigation at the national and European level, the Coalition aims to strengthen accountability and accelerate the robust implementation of existing environmental laws.

• EU Member States should effectively protect 30% of their seas by 2030 to meet the EU 2030 Biodiversity Strategy and global biodiversity targets, counting only MPAs that are genuinely safeguarded with effective conservation measures.

• EU Member States should, in line with EU and national nature protection laws, ensure immediate adoption of ambitious conservation measures to meet conservation objectives set for all Natura 2000 sites, including stopping harmful activities, such as bottom trawling, that damage habitats or disturb wildlife, and setting up effective systems to safeguard these areas.

• EU Member States should end bottom trawling in all MPAs to ensure their effective protection and support artisanal fishers who use bottom trawling gear in their transition towards sustainable fishing practices.

• The European Commission must take action to ensure that Member States fulfil their obligations under the Birds and Habitats Directives by banning bottom trawling and other destructive fishing practices within Natura 2000 sites.