Current conservation status

Norway > UK > Ireland > Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands > Canada > USA > Australia > New Zealand

Lophelia has been reported along the continental shelf, on offshore seamounts and banks in UK waters. Many records are known from the Rockall Bank and a newly mapped inshore reef complex has also been found, set in the entrance to the Sea of Hebrides.

At present none of these coral areas has received any protection from potentially damaging activities such as bottom trawling. The only area to have received protection is the Darwin Mounds, a series of sand volcanoes colonised by cold-water corals and strange, singled-celled creatures called xenophyophores.

They are located 185 kilometres off northwest Scotland. The mounds extend over an area of approximately 100 km² in the northern Rockall Trough . Within an area of approximately 1,300 km² bottom trawling, or fishing using gear which may contact the bottom has been prohibited since August 2004.

Currently, no national legislation exists protecting Lophelia pertusa reefs or cold-water coral colonies in general, although they do feature in the non-statutory UK Biodiversity Action Plan, which recommends conservation actions including research on their distribution in UK waters and designation of marine protected areas.

Since Greenpeace successfully lobbied the English High Court to extend the EU Habitats directive to the 200 nm limit of the exclusive economic zone in 1999, several draft special areas of conservation have been suggested by JNCC. The Darwin Mounds are a candidate Special Area of Conservation, with five others including the Wyville-Thomson Ridge being draft Special Areas of Conservation. You can read more about these sites on the DC-UK website.