How to stop trawling from trashing the North Sea

Recently Greenpeace dropped a boatload of granite boulders on to Dogger Bank, a permanent threat to any boat that attempts to drag a trawl net across the sandy sea-bottom. One of the biggest boulders had my name painted on it, because Greenpeace asked and I said yes. And in saying yes, I crossed a line that I have never crossed before in 40 years of writing about the environment. I joined the activists, in I hope a measured way, because it’s so very important to give the North Sea a chance to revive itself.

Dogger Bank is the ecological heart of the North Sea and it played a large part in the growth of civilisation in northern Europe. It is also the perfect example of the failure of the European Union to obey its own environmental laws; and, unless drastic action is taken and amendments are made to the Fisheries Bill, it will also become a symbol of Brexit as a lost opportunity.