Five North Sea reefs off Denmark are a step closer to being protected from bottom-contact fishing gear after countries with fishing interests in the area agreed on a Danish proposal to restrict the practice.
The agreement, reached on 24 September through the regional cooperation between North Sea countries, covers five Danish Natura 2000 sites: Store Rev, Gule Rev, Thyborøn Stenvolde, Jyske Rev and Lønstrup Rødgrund.
The proposal has now been sent to the European Commission, which must give its final approval before the restrictions can enter into force. Denmark’s Environment Ministry said the process is expected to take around six to nine months, meaning the ban is not yet operational.
Belgium had been the main obstacle
Denmark has been working for several years to ban fishing with bottom-contact gear on and around reef structures in the five protected areas.
According to the Danish Environment Ministry, negotiations with Belgium had been the main obstacle because Belgian vessels use beam trawls in some of the affected areas.
At Gule Rev in particular, Belgian beam-trawl fishing has produced average annual landings worth around DKK 5.8 million (€780,000).
An agreement was eventually reached after Environment Minister Maria Reumert Gjerding met her Belgian counterpart in August. All affected EU countries have since backed the proposal through the Scheveningen Group, the regional cooperation structure for North Sea fisheries.
Gjerding said the agreement had taken too long but represented an important step for marine protection.
“It is a great relief and a victory for the sea that we can now secure a ban that protects some of our most important rocky reefs in the North Sea.”
The reefs provide habitats and feeding grounds for species including dead man’s fingers coral, sea anemones, cod and saithe, while harbour porpoises also feed in the areas.
Protecting North Sea reefs through EU fisheries policy
The restrictions illustrate how protection of marine Natura 2000 sites can depend not only on national environmental policy but also on the EU Common Fisheries Policy.
Under EU rules, countries with a direct fisheries management interest can develop joint recommendations for conservation measures in protected marine areas. The Commission can then turn those recommendations into binding EU rules.
The European Commission has identified fishing and harvesting of marine resources among the most significant pressures on marine Natura 2000 ecosystems and has called on member states to phase out mobile bottom fishing in marine protected areas by 2030.
Scientific research also supports concerns about bottom-contact gear. A 2024 project by DTU Aqua and its research partners in Jammerbugten found that heavy beam trawling can cause substantial damage to vulnerable seabed habitats, including mixed seabeds and rocky reefs.
For the five Danish sites, however, the practical change still depends on the Commission completing the formal procedure. Until that happens, the regional agreement remains a proposal for future fishing restrictions rather than an existing ban.
