Stop it. STOP IT! This is a terribly Serious and Important thing, all to do with industrial fishing and delicate marine ecosystems and we could do without any sniggering at the back. Or the bottom.



So then, fishing. A political lightning rod of an industry, but an absolute minnow, economically speaking.



Largely out of sight and unknown, modern industrial practices make an 'orrible mess of the ocean floor as super-trawlers dredge, scrape and otherwise embugger delicate aquatic ecology. Which is why this week's news that bottom trawling (STOP IT!) is to be banned in certain so-called Marine Protected Areas is welcome. Welcome, but also begs the question 'why the HELL were you allowed to trawl the ocean's bottom in Marine Protected Areas in the first plaice'?



To answer that and myriad other fishy enquiries, Chris Williams, a marine economist at the New Economics Foundation, joins Dave* for a chinwag. Let's hope he doesn't clam up. Or carp on.



*Ol continues to flounder in the face of covid and is therefore AWOL for another week.



To follow Chris' work, find him on Twitter @marineeconomics.



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