Elements with tag fisheries management
This week, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has unveiled its famous biannual report on the state of the World’s Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020 (SOFIA) that monitors global trends on fish production and consumption with a focus on sustainability [1]. The report brings about good news evidencing an increase of global capture fisheries production and an increase of seafood consumption, while confirming that the vast majority of landings come from biologically sustainable stocks.
The European Commission has unveiled today its proposal for an EU Biodiversity strategy calling for urgent action to protect nature in the EU and worldwide. The strategy claims to set up a full transformative plan towards an EU environmentally-friendly food production system that preserves and restores biodiversity. Europêche agrees that the EU must be ambitious in setting high environmental standards but not at the cost of increasing imports and lowering EU food production. EU fishermen oppose the new strategy since it is discriminatory, undermines the viability of the sector by decreasing its productivity and capacity to invest in improving social and environmental performance, further restricting the sustainable use of the oceans, subjecting fish products to additional taxation and making fisheries the target of discrediting campaigns.
The European Commission has launched its annual consultation on the state of fish stocks and the preparation for setting fish quotas for next year marked by the objective to fish all stocks at maximum sustainable yield (MSY1) levels by 2020. The good news is that most of the stocks in the North East Atlantic have already reached this target. However, and despite generalised fishing effort reductions, some fish populations are struggling to rebuild or even to remain at current level. The answer may be found in the latest scientific advices which revealed major challenges in some fisheries caused by the destabilizing effect of the full introduction of the landing obligation and environmental factors such as climate change. The European fishing industry represented by Europêche expresses once again its concern over the stated aim to have all stocks at biomass levels that can produce Maximum Sustainable Yields will prove to be counterproductive, since the production capacity of our sea bas
After an exhausting 40-hour session capping two weeks of negotiations at the UN headquarters in New York, the United Nations (UN) member states agreed to a landmark international Treaty on the conservation and sustainable use of marine Biological diversity of areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). These areas comprise around two thirds of our oceans. The treaty will implement area-based management tools, including marine protected areas (MPAs), and will regulate human activities in the High Seas. The EU fishing sector welcomes the agreement since the BBNJ Treaty will play a fundamental role in protecting and sustainably use marine areas not sufficiently regulated while respecting and building on the success of fisheries management.