LAND’S END (UK): Greenpeace said on Friday it had dropped 18 large boulders on the seabed in a marine conservation zone off the coast of south-western England to prevent “destructive” industrial fishing.

The environmental campaigners sailed to the western part of the Channel between Britain and France, loaded with the boulders of Portland limestone, each weighing between 500 and 1,400 kilograms.

The giant rocks were dropped on Thursday from its Arctic Sunrise research vessel in an area known as South West Deeps conservation zone, some 190 kilometres off Land’s End, the most westerly point of mainland England.

“We are placing large limestone boulders on the seabed to create a protective underwater barrier which will put the area off limits to destructive fishing,” Anna Diski, an oceans campaigner, said on board.

The action would make it “impossible for them to drag the heavy fishing gear along the seabed, destroying the habitat and disturbing the carbon”, she added.

Artists created a giant ammonite sculpture — inspired by the fossil often found in Portland limestone — out of one of the boulders, which was also placed on the seabed.

The names of the action’s celebrity backers and supportive politicians were also inscribed on the rocks.

“Right now, there’s an industrial fishing frenzy happening in UK waters, and what’s our government doing about it?” asked Greenpeace UK’s head of oceans, Will McCallum.

“Greenpeace UK has created this underwater boulder barrier as a last resort to protect the oceans. We’d much rather the government just did their job.”

McCallum said it was “outrageous” that bottom-trawlers are allowed to operate on the seabed in protected areas. “They destroy huge swathes of the marine ecosystem and make a mockery of our so-called `protection’,” he added.

The action comes after the latest round of UN talks to try to secure protection for marine life in international waters broke up without agreement.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2022