Greens slam govt marine bill
The government’s draft marine bill is not robust enough to compensate for decades of damage to the seas and marine ecosystems, the Green party has said.
The party will press for amendments to the bill, in order to further help it undo the negative impacts of overfishing, sewage, and mining pollution on the ecosystem.
“The government proposals, while introducing some helpful mechanisms will only offer local remission,” said Green party leader Dr Caroline Lucas.
The measures “do not address the fundamental implication of the very serious decline in commercial fishing productivity and the damage that present fishing practices and other activities are doing to the marine ecosystem,” Ms Lucas added, commenting on a report by the
Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution 2004.
She called for a network of highly protected marine reserves to cover 30 per cent of UK territorial waters out to 200 nautical miles.
“The UK has sovereign rights adequate to introduce this within our territorial waters. Nothing less can restore the damage to the ecosystem and halt the continued decline in revenues for the fishing industry,” Ms Lucas said, adding that the network should be set up by 2015 in order to reach their goals, as well as EU obligations.
“We have a ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunity to set a standard for the rest of Europe. We need to begin the process of economic recovery of the fishing industry, and restore the viability of one of the world’s most polluted and degraded ecosystems.”
