More than two-thirds of people support a ban on damaging fishing methods in protected areas of the sea, it has emerged.
The findings come as conservationists warn fishing such as bottom trawling – in which a weighted net is pulled along the seafloor to catch fish – risks releasing millions of tonnes of carbon stored in the seabed in protected areas.
Data from the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) estimates UK marine protected areas in the waters of the continental shelf store around 26.5 million tonnes of carbon.
Industrial methods of fishing such as bottom trawling risk releasing this “blue carbon” by disturbing the seabed where it would otherwise be stored, adding to the climate crisis rather than helping fight it, environmentalists say.
Bottom trawlers are operating in 98 per cent of the UK’s marine protected areas, designated to protect sea wildlife and habitats which can be damaged by the fishing process, MCS said.
The Greenpeace survey of 1,883 people found 71 per cent of those quizzed did not think bottom trawling should be allowed in protected areas of the sea, and 69 per cent supported a ban in those places.
Just three per cent opposed a ban, and only 12 per cent of those questioned thought the Government was doing enough to protect the UK’s seas from industrial fishing.
Chris Thorne, an oceans campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said bottom trawlers were ripping up areas of seabed that were supposed to be protected.
He said: "This is equivalent to a bulldozer ploughing through a nature reserve, but this destruction of our marine environment is so often out of sight and out of mind for both the public and, unfortunately, politicians.
“This is damaging the marine environment and disturbing vital stores of blue carbon.”
The Government has announced plans to prohibit bottom trawling across all or some of four marine protected areas, which environmental groups say will help the wildlife there, but is just the tip of the iceberg of what is needed.
