Although Swedish fishermen attempted to prevent Greenpeace from leaving port, the organisation has now begun dumping 180 stone blocks in Swedish waters of the Kattegat, to prevent bottom trawlers from using the area.

“The coastguard helped us to get out of port with our vessel,” says Greenpeace Press Spokeswoman Birgitte Lesanner.

The blocks are being dropped in the Fladen and Lille Middelgrund banks between the Danish islands of Læsø and Anholt to stop Danish and Swedish trawlers from using their bottom trawls.

Strategic dumping
Greepeace says that the areas are listed by the Swedish Government as needing protection under Natura 2000 of the EU Habitat Directive because of their unique and rich sea life, but claims that the government is failing to protect them and that bottom trawling is common throughout the area.

“The Swedish government needs to fulfil its commitment to protect the area and put a permanent ban on fishing in Fladen and Lilla Middelgrund,” says Greenpeace Ocean Campaigner Isadora Wronski.

Each of the granite blocks being dumped weights up to three tonnes.

Disgusting action
The Danish Fishermans Association says the Greenpeace action is ‘disgusting’.

“As far as I know these are relatively large blocks. If they dumped them out in the woods people would be able to see how disgusting it is. But they’re dumping them in the sea, so no-one can see them,” says Danish Fishermans Association Chairman Ole Lundberg Larsen, adding that Greenpeace may be breaking the law.

“They risk preventing perfectly legal fishing – and that is something you are not allowed to do. Bottom trawling is legal and we don’t see it as a problem,” Lundberg Larsen says.

Minister
Although Greenpeace’s action is legal under Swedish law, Denmark’s Food and Fisheries Minister Eva Kjær Hansen has contacted her Swedish colleague Eskild Erlandsson, urging him to stop the Greenpeace action.

According to reports, Erlandsson has tried but been unable to do so.

2008
Greenpeace says that in 2008 it placed 320 boulders in Germany’s Sylt Outer Reef, another Natura 2000 site.

”Since the placing of the boulders trawlers have been prevented from fishing the reef. The boulders have already being colonised by a wealth of marine life,” Greenpeace claims in its press release.