Rewilding the Sea - Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life - page 252

of the reserve's existence appears to have outweighed the promise of
higher returns for ever after.
The opposition of the fishing industry also explains the dithering
and downgrading by the British governments which promised to pro-
tect the life of the seas. In 2004 the Royal Commission pointed out
that the seas around this country 'have been scrutinized in great detail
since at least the mid-19th Century'. Existing data was easily suffi-
cient 'to design comprehensive, representative and adequate networks
of marine protected areas for UK waters'. But at the time of writing,
eight years later, the Westminster government is still procrastinating,
on the grounds that 'there are a number of gaps and limitations in the
scientific evidence base'. 73
The government originally offered to protect 127 sites in English
waters. Now it appears to be paring the list down. Worse still, it
intends to protect only the remaining 'vulnerable features'. In most
places trawling has already destroyed just about every fragile habitat;
the government, according to a conservationist heavily involved in
this debate, intends to 'protect the pin-pricks of features that remain,
and allow trawling around them . . . Someone recently likened this to
designating a ploughed field for an oak tree in the middle of the field,
and only the oak tree is protected, whilst the ploughing is
continued.' 74
Even this feeble protection will apply to only some of the sites on
the list: the government says that designating an area as a marine con-
servation zone 'does not automatically mean that fishing in that site
will be restricted'. 75 Many of them will be protected in name only.
Unless something changes, the reforms will raise the proportion of
England's seas in reserves where no fishing takes place to around
0.5 per cent: one sixtieth of the level the Royal Commission suggested
was necessary to protect a significant portion of marine wildlife.
In Wales the policy is even worse. The government has promised to
consider 'no more than 3 to 4 sites', 76 covering 0.15 per cent of its
seas. 77 So far there has been no certain progress towards this miser-
able target. The 'protected areas' we already possess are nothing of
the kind. For example, a little way down the coast from where I live
is the Cardigan Bay Special Area of Conservation (SAC). Special areas
of conservation are supposed to offer the highest level of protection