Seabed trawling, or dredging, is the both extremely efficient and massively destructive practice of dragging weighted nets across marine beds to catch fish and marine life. Habitats can be instantly destroyed, with ecosystems uprooted, dismantled or captured completely. Almost invisible on the surface, the practice has grown out of control worldwide in the comfort of near-impossible policing. Dredging is a massive carbon emitter too, with ancient organic carbon stores on the sea bed acting not dissimilarly to peat fields on land – acting as a carbon capture when undisturbed. The conversation resonates locally, with a judicial review in June ruling that the Scottish Government had failed to act lawfully in accordance with their own National Marine Plan when it came to licence regulation.
Across the ocean beneath the Italian coast we find Casa dei Pesci (or the house of the fishes) an underwater museum and brainchild of lifelong fisherman Paolo Fanciulli. The project follows a successful eco-tourism initiative lead by Fanciulli wherein which the public could join the fisherman at sea whilst being taught of the damage that illegal trawling had done across Talamone’s coastline. Despite trawling’s illegality, local government was hesitant to allow Fanciulli to intervene further. But the fisherman had a plan to dwindle the ongoing destruction, and he was going to make it happen.
Finally, it was agreed, and 800 blocks of net-snagging concrete make their way to the sea floor. In 2015 the project would take an artful turn following the donation of 100 blocks of marble from the same Carrara mountains that Michael Angelo sourced his. The intention was for the blocks to be sculpted into an underwater art installation, with the help of famed sculptors like the UK’s Emily Young, Casa die Pesci was born. Where Young’s work may usually appear in the world’s most prestigious showcases, she had found freedom in Pesci’s initiative, “there was something poetic about sacrificing these statues to the water,” she tells James Imam for i news.
The sculptures are larger than life; a collection of monoliths and gargantuan totems are willingly being covered in the marine life they are there to save. Scuba diving tours allow for a tour around this graveyard-turned-revived seabed attraction, with only a snorkel required on a calm tide. The initiative has seen a major revival of marine life in the Talamone bay area with illegal dredging coming to a near complete halt.
According to the UK’s Marine Conservation Society, “The Dogger Bank Marine Protected Area, off the east coast of Yorkshire, has the capacity to store the most carbon of all UK MPAs – equivalent to 31,000 return trips from London to Sydney.” A ban on trawling in the area was introduced in June 2022, making it one of the first marine protected areas (MPAs) within UK waters to introduce a ban. Following the UK’s departure from the European Union, the 2020 Fisheries act allowed self control of the UK’s fishing waters and their regulation for the first time since 1973. Despite being law-binding, the act was oddly non-specific. The bill focuses on re-evaluating focus towards climate change aware, sustainable, precautionary and nationally-benefitting fishing practice – though how this would be achieved is not evident.
Over three and a half years later, the UK government appears unwilling to move on its stance on the destructive practice of sea bed trawling. This time last year, under then environment secretary Thérèse Coffey, proposals were drawn up for partial bans within 13 of the 40 UK MPAs. The proposal however, would outright ban trawling in only 3 of these with the other 10 introducing partial bans in “reefs and rocks where trawling is unlikely to occur anyway”, according to The Guardian’s Karen McVeigh.
In conversation with Sam Haddad for Huck magazine, Dan Crockett, director of Ocean and Climate at the Blue Marine Foundation, blames governments’ willingness to negotiate with fishing lobbyists for these unwavering levels of malpractice; it is “like letting the poacher look after the woods”. While Fanciulli’s plan is a heart-warming success, these local scandals quickly relocate themselves elsewhere. Without legally binding action the wider ocean remains at risk.
“Gili Underwater Sculpture” by Strocchi is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.