Industrial trawling of inshore coastal waters – the richest marine habitats – does not even have an economic rationale beyond quick profit for those who pillage first. The net economic return is negative for global fishermen as a whole. As the Nature paper argues, fish stocks would be much higher with better conservation. 

Yet the CO2 loss equals the total carbon loss from soil in terrestrial farming worldwide – a far harder political nut to crack. Of all the things that mankind can do cheaply, easily, and quickly to abate carbon emissions, stopping bottom-trawling just about tops the list.

At this point, the Anglo-French dispute is mostly over the territorial waters of Jersey, a self-governing crown dependency that is not part of the UK. Mr Macron claims that “London” is still withholding 80 or so licences out of 350 demanded. 

Gregory Guida, Jersey’s French-born interior minister, says there is a superficial question over whether applicants can prove that they fished the same waters in the past, or whether some are “jumping on the bandwagon”. 

There is a deeper question over whether the island’s degraded habitat can withstand anything close to 350 licences. “Jersey is overfished and these boats are getting bigger, sometimes three times the catch,” he adds.

“We can’t allow these waters to be plundered. This is very dangerous for conservation and is a violation of the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas,” he says. “Yet the EU has just been slamming its fist on the table. It is a huge disappointment to me that French environmentalists have  been keeping quiet.” 

Guida says the TCA agreement states that conservation of marine habits is paramount and that there should not be an increase in “fishing pressure”. One should not hand out licences like confetti without technical analysis.

The industrial fish lobby likes to play on our emotions, conflating its interests with those of coastal fishing communities, but this saga is as much a clash between different sorts of fishing. Giant trawlers are no friend of lobstermen or “low-impact” coastal boats.   

“Bottom trawling is an abusive smokestack industry, and we need to get rid of the whole thing,” says Charles Clover from the Blue Marine Foundation.

“We would have a lot more fishing communities if it weren’t for these dinosaurs grinding through the seas. We could have four times more fish in restored habitats, as we’ve shown in Lyme Bay. The French government is being completely blinkered about this. They’re trying to defend the indefensible,” he says.

The British have been almost as bad over recent years, which complicates the story. There is no general ban on bottom-trawling in close inshore waters. Scotland has gone backwards. Campaigners secured a prohibition in the 1880s because the ecological ravages were already clear. This was repealed a century later. Today’s behemoth trawlers, many of which are Dutch, can sweep through the fragile habitats at will. 

There is one big difference, however. Everything is in flux now that the British have reclaimed environmental sovereignty. The UK this year banned bottom-trawling on the Dogger Bank to comply with the Habitats Directive, which ironically was impossible while we were still in the EU. It has since faced a barrage of threats from European states that want to keep vandalising as if nothing has changed. 

In this case the loudest noises are coming from Denmark. But the accusation is the same as in the French dispute: the UK is falsely accused of breaching the trade deal. “They refuse to accept that the TCA entitles Britain to take reasonable measures under the precautionary principle to prevent overfishing and look after the environment. We weren’t able to protect our fish stocks under the Common Fisheries Policy, and now we are,” says Clover.