A group of nature NGOs are suing the Netherlands’ government over its allowance of trawling within the Dogger Bank area.
Stichting Doggerland, ARK Rewilding Nederland, ClientEarth, and Blue Marine Foundation are all participating in the lawsuit against the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Foods Security, and Nature over allowing trawling within the Dogger Bank area, which they say is illegal. The Dogger Bank nature conservation area was designated a Special Area of Conservation in 2004, and was designated as a German nature conservation area in 2017. Dogger Bank itself is the largest sand bank in the North Sea; the conservation area is 12,331 square kilometers in size.
The NGOs said the Netherlands has allowed trawling in “most” of the area, which is against the law given its conservation area status.
“Where the government has a duty to protect and restore nature in this area, we instead see continued decline,” Doggerland Director Emilie Reuchlin said. “After ten years of wrangling over its use, this must end. We now demand clarity for both nature and the fishing sector.”
The organizations said the Netherlands needs to close its section of Dogger Bank to trawling, claiming the practice has “left a trail of destruction” in the bank.
“Bottom trawling poses a huge threat to the nursery ground of the North Sea. It destroys all life in and on the seabed, including sharks, rays, long-lived shellfish, sea pens, anemones and corals. The protected status of the area is effectively a charade,” Reuchlin said.
Blue Marine Foundation Chief Legal Affairs Adviser Tom Appleby said the Netherland’s lack of action is contrary to the stance of other countries abutting Dogger Bank.
“The Dogger Bank is the heart of the North Sea and is meant to have the same levels of protection in the U.K., Germany and the Netherlands,” Appleby said. “Yet the U.K. has closed nearly all of its portion to bottom trawling, Germany more than half and the Netherlands just over a quarter.”
The NGOs said less than one percent of Netherland’s portion of the North Sea is protected, meaning the country isn’t meeting its commitment to international targets requiring 30 percent of the sea be managed by protected areas by 2030.
“With only four years to go until 2030, we can no longer afford delays,” Reuchlin said. “The Dogger Bank should have been properly protected years ago.”
