The 60% Protection Question

Four months after a record-breaking consultation, the government still can’t say when it will protect our seas

Four months after closing the most extensive marine protection consultation it has ever undertaken, the Marine Management Organisation (MMO) still cannot say when it will announce the outcome.

‘We will continue to provide updates as soon as possible,’ an MMO spokesperson told Ocean Rising this week, declining to provide a timeline despite receiving what they described as ‘a record number of responses’ calling for restrictions on bottom trawling in 42 offshore Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), zones designated by the government to safeguard vulnerable seabed habitats and wildlife.

The Wildlife Trusts, which mobilised over 18,000 submissions, say they have received no indication of when a decision will come. Meanwhile, bottom trawling, where heavy nets and gear are dragged across the seabed, continues in areas designated for protection. And the government’s own planning documents suggest any action is still a year away.

How consultations are supposed to work

When the government proposes new regulations, it opens a public consultation. Citizens, businesses, and organisations submit their views. The government is then expected to publish a summary of responses, explain how it weighed the evidence, and announce its decision within a reasonable timeframe.

The process of protecting England’s offshore MPAs from bottom trawling has been divided into three stages. Stage 1 introduced byelaws in four MPAs in 2022. Stage 2, completed in March 2024, added protections in 13 more. Stage 3 covers 42 offshore MPAs where bottom trawling threatens designated seabed features.

The Stage 3 MPA consultation closed on 29 September 2025. Four months later, no summary has been published, no decision has been announced, and no timeline has been provided.

What the minister claimed

In a letter to Conservative MP Jack Rankin dated January 2026, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Parliamentary Under Secretary Emma Hardy defended the government’s marine protection record. ‘We have now established 181 Marine Protected Areas covering around 40% of English waters,’ Hardy wrote, adding that ‘byelaws are now in place protecting around 60% of MPAs from damaging fishing activity.’

The 40% figure is accurate, but the 60% figure requires examination.

What ‘60% protected’ actually means

Of England’s 181 Marine Protected Areas, 17 have byelaws prohibiting bottom trawling. These protections were introduced in two stages: four MPAs in 2022 and 13 more in March 2024, according to DEFRA announcements.

The government’s ‘60% protected’ claim refers to MPAs that have some fisheries management measures in place, but ‘some measures’ is not the same as protection from destructive fishing. The government has explicitly rejected whole-site bans on bottom trawling, stating in its response to the Environmental Audit Committee that such measures would be ‘disproportionate and not in line with legislation.’

Not all MPAs are designated for seabed features. Some protect birds or migratory species, where bottom trawling restrictions would have limited conservation benefit. The Stage 3 consultation, however, specifically targets 42 MPAs where bottom trawling threatens designated benthic habitats, the communities of organisms living on and in the seabed, covering approximately 30,000 square kilometres.

Instead, DEFRA pursues ‘feature-based’ protection, banning destructive fishing only over specific seabed features within MPAs while allowing it to continue elsewhere inside the protected area boundaries.

Ruth Williams, Head of Marine Conservation at The Wildlife Trusts, questioned whether this approach is sound. ‘We question if the evidence base for which feature maps are based, much of which is based on modelling and very limited monitoring data, is of sufficient confidence to take a features-based approach,’ she told Ocean Rising.

Research from Lyme Bay, where a whole-site ban has been in place since 2008, suggests her concerns are well-founded: whole-site protection delivers significantly greater conservation recovery than feature-based restrictions.

Williams noted that some proposed Stage 3 byelaws do cover entire MPAs where designated features span the whole site. But she expressed ‘strong concerns over the other areas where only designated features will be protected.’

Only three of England's MPAs, the Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs) designated in 2023, are intended to prohibit all extractive and destructive activities. However, the byelaws to enforce these protections have not yet come into force, meaning these areas currently have no active restrictions.

The consultation that went nowhere

The Stage 3 consultation proposed bottom trawling restrictions in 42 offshore MPAs covering approximately 30,000 square kilometres. It ran from June to September 2025, extended following requests from industry, according to the MMO.

The response was record-breaking. The Wildlife Trusts alone mobilised 18,425 submissions, according to Williams. The MMO confirmed to Ocean Rising that they received ‘a record number of responses.’

Four months later, no consultation summary has been published. No timeline for a decision has been announced. The MMO asks those who participated for ‘patience.’

Williams told Ocean Rising that the Wildlife Trusts have received ‘no indication on the timeframe for announcing the outcome of the consultation other than that in the EIP.’ Despite pressing both the MMO and DEFRA through national policy work, the organisation has been told that ‘due to the large number of responses it is taking longer than expected.’

The government’s Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) states that fisheries management byelaws for MPAs and HPMAs are scheduled to be implemented ‘by the end of 2026’. That is potentially 15 months after the consultation closed.

‘We are frustrated by this delay,’ Williams said. ‘Management of these sites is already way overdue and further delay means the possibility of further degradation of these MPAs.’

Bottom trawling continues legally in these protected areas while the government reviews responses. This delay is not an isolated case. The rest of this investigation examines the pattern, and what it reveals about the gap between what the government announces and what actually happens.