Jo and Joe Animated Cards
Conservation
Save Lyme Bay Reefs – Show your support for a 60 square mile ban on towed fishing gears!
PLEASE NOTE - YOU CAN STILL VIEW THE ANIMATION, BUT THE LYME BAY REEFS PETITION HAS NOW CLOSED.
Lyme Bay Reefs need your help! Lyme Bay, off the Devon and Dorset coast, is one of Britain’s finest sites for marine wildlife. The reefs are a haven for corals, sponges and starfish and are thought to be home to more than 300 species. The reefs also support valuable seafood animals, including crab, lobster and scallops.
Some forms of fishing, such as potting and scallop-diving, cause no damage to the reefs, but Devon Wildlife Trust (WT) has shown that dredging (rather than diving) for scallops is extremely destructive. Pink sea fans can take decades to develop, but dredging can destroy them in seconds.
Devon WT has been studying the reefs for 15 years and, along with The Wildlife Trusts, has campaigned for their protection. During the 1990s, Devon WT worked with the local fishermen and negotiated a voluntary agreement in 2001 to stop scallop dredging in two parts of the Bay. This agreement broke down last year, demonstrating the need for a statutory approach. Natural England, with the backing of The Wildlife Trusts, subsequently called upon Defra to introduce an Order to stop the damaging activity.
Defra is now consulting on three options for protecting Lyme Bay’s marine wildlife and is gathering information to assess the importance of the Bay for possible designation under European law. We will be making a strong case for Option C – the statutory protection of the whole of the Lyme Bay Reefs – 60 square miles, less than 10% of Lyme Bay.
We believe that this is the right decision not only on nature conservation grounds but because it will help secure the future of sustainable local uses of the reef’s natural resources, valued at twice that of scalloping.
More seabed destruction – or a sustainable future for the Lyme Bay Reefs? It’s a simple choice.
PLEASE NOTE - YOU CAN STILL VIEW THE ANIMATION, BUT THE LYME BAY REEFS PETITION HAS NOW CLOSED. For the latest on the Campaign please visit The Wildlife Tusts