Thread by @GeorgeMonbiot

This is a truly shocking story: strong evidence of systematic dumping of used fishing gear by Spanish and French boats in the UK's seas, and its devastating impact on marine life.
This isn't about nationalism though - we should all be horrified by it. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Every time the boats dock they take on miles of new net. When they return to port after 4-6 weeks at sea, they dispose of ... nothing. No used gear, no rubbish. Where does it go?
This is what local trawlers are now dredging up on every trip. Massive bundles of dumped nets.

These "ghost nets" are full of the animals they catch as they drift through the sea. I will spare you the pictures of the dead seals I've been sent: they are extremely distressing. But what follows are snapshots of the indiscriminate slaughter happening around our coasts.

Fish and crustaceans of many species, picked up as the dumped nets roll across the seafloor. But the discarded gillnets local trawlers retrieve are necessarily a tiny fraction of the whole. Most will remain snagged on rocks and weed, killing animals perhaps for years to come.

And it's not just fishing gear that local trawlers are pulling in. It's skiploads of freshly dumped rubbish, often consisting of French and Spanish food wrappers. It's pretty clear: the sea is being used as a dustbin.

The gillnets are also devastating when they're in use. Here's a video of a boat hauling one in off the coast of Scotland. Midway through you'll see a man smashing the crabs in the net with a hammer, presumably because it's the quickest way to get them out.

These are beautiful big brown crabs, being killed and dumped just for speed. Perhaps it's no wonder that, where the gillnetters operate, local creel fishers report that their crustacean catches are falling through the floor.
So is everything else.

The scale of these operations beggars belief. A large boat will deploy between 50 and 70 miles of gillnets at a time. If this is allowed to continue, it's very hard to see any outcome other than systemic ecological collapse.
Yet the Scottish government - @scotgov - does nothing.

With many thanks to the person who sent me these photos and footage, who wishes to protect his identity.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the country, why are we STILL allowing these monstrous vessels to ransack our waters and, it seems, slaughter vast numbers of dolphins?
cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-…