On Thursday 22nd September, Greenpeace Edinburgh Local Group hosted an evening of live music to raise money for the latest part of Greenpeace’s campaign to stop the industrial fishing frenzy.
The Fundraising Gig took place at The Wee Red Bar at Edinburgh College of Art and featured music from local bands Abolish Golf, Grace and the Flatboys, Isabella Strange, and Scottish blues-rock musician Megan Black.
Over 120 people attended and thanks to the generosity of local people, Edinburgh Greenpeace raised around £630, which will contribute towards the £10,000 cost of dropping each boulder.
Zoe, a volunteer from Newington said: ‘The fundraising gig was an incredible success! We got the chance to hear some amazing local music and to talk to people about why protecting our oceans is such a crucial part of preventing climate catastrophe.
“We found that people were really keen to get involved in Greenpeace and hear more about our campaigns.”
Greenpeace UK has placed 18 limestone boulders on the seabed in the South West Deeps (East) Marine Protected Area to block destructive industrial fishing.
On 1st September, campaigners and crew on board Greenpeace’s ship Arctic Sunrise sailed to the western English Channel to make a portion of the South West Deeps off-limits to bottom-trawling.
The boulder action took place days after UK leaders failed to help secure a Global Ocean Treaty during negotiations in New York, threatening the Government’s aim to achieve at least 30% ocean protection by 2030.
Across the entirety of the South West Deeps (East) – more than 4,600 km2 – there is not one metre of protection from destructive industrial fishing. It is one of the most heavily fished so-called Marine Protected Areas in the UK.
In the last 18 months, the South West Deeps experienced almost 19,000 hours of industrial fishing, 3,370 hours of which was bottom-trawling. The majority of industrial fishing vessels in the area were from France (53%) followed by Spain (30%) and Great Britain (9%) [1].
Celebrities Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, Simon Pegg, Stephen Fry, and Daniel Lismore are supporting the action, alongside Conservative politicians Henry Smith MP, Sir Peter Bottomley MP and Theresa May’s former Downing Street environment advisor Lord Randall, as well as the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas MP.
Their names were stencilled onto the boulders before being dropped into the ocean.
The 18 boulders are Portland limestone, and each weighs between 500kg and 1,400kg. They make it impossible for bottom-towed fishing gear to be dragged along the seabed.
Artists from the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust created a giant ammonite sculpture out of one of the boulders, which will be placed on the seabed alongside the others. The sculptors took inspiration from the ammonite fossils found in Portland limestone.
Zoe continued: ‘As a coastal city, we know how important our oceans are for fishing communities, tourism and tackling climate change.
“The boulder barrier is a last resort to save the UK’s marine life; we would prefer that the Government just did their job and kept long-standing promises to end destructive fishing in MPAs.’