Conservationists are urging the Government to create five protection zones in the North Sea and to ban fishing in them to give fish stocks a chance to recover.

Commercial stocks including cod, haddock, turbot and monkfish would be among the species that would most benefit, but a fishing ban would aid the entire ecosystem, according to a report published today by the WWF.

Other wildlife expected to flourish would be seals, dolphins and the rare angel shark. The common skate, once abundant but now all but gone from the North Sea, might even reestablish itself as a commercial species.

The protection areas, which would cover a total of 5.08 per cent of the North Sea, should be trailblazers for a network that conservationists hope will eventually cover 30 per cent of the region, say the researchers.

Protection zones around Britain’s coastline are likely to form a central part of proposals contained in the Government’s draft marine Bill, which is expected to be published within weeks. Parts of Dogger Bank and the Moray Firth are among the areas suggested as the best places for experimental protection zones in the report, A Return to Abundance: A Case for Marine Reserves in the North Sea.

Giles Bartlett, Fisheries Policy Officer of WWF, said: “Under present fisheries management policies, species and habitats will continue to decline. It is vital that we rebuild resilience in North Sea ecosystems. With fishing bans in place, species of fish that have declined can reestablish themselves. WWF urges the Government immediately to implement a network of experimental marine reserves that can be used to strengthen fisheries management in the North Sea and deliver lasting protection to the full spectrum of marine wildlife.”

Main fish species in the North Sea are estimated to have declined by at least 50 per cent and up to 98 per cent over the past century. Trawling the seabed has destroyed much of the natural habitat.

However, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described the report as “fundamentally flawed” and said that the “unique nature of the mixed fisheries” in the North Sea meant that it was wrong to assume that research showing positive effects from protection zones in other parts of the world would apply off the East Coast of Britain. The SSF added: “We believe that introducing marine protected areas on the scale proposed by WFF would have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of Scottish fishermen and would also affect the fish supply chain to the consumer.”

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