ICCAT 2012: Fate of Bluefin Tuna and Sharks Being Discussed

This week, the annual ICCAT conference is underway in Agadir, Morocco. As some of you may know, Oceana has observer status at the ICCAT meeting, and two of our experts are on the ground as we speak. Bluefin tuna is such an iconic species, both because of its place in the culinary history of so … Read more

Oceana applauds EU and Norway initiative to end discards in the Skagerrak

The European Commission has confirmed it will work with Norway to end discards in the Skagerrak. The proposal features an obligation to land all catches of certain fish species so as to stop the practice of discarding by 2015. Oceana welcomes this initiative and urges EU Member States to keep this measure in the new … Read more

Overfishing: a video

As part of our policy work on reforming the Common Fisheries Policy, Oceana often teams up with other NGOs in the area so as to maximize our influence on decision makers in Brussels and the EU.   Here’s a great video that came out of this partnership that clearly explains the scale of the overfishing … Read more

Sweden steps up the fight against EU-wide discards

Sweden has stepped up the fight for an EU-wide ban on discards, as rural affairs minister Eskil Erlandsson arrived in Brussels to outline his vision for an ‘ethical and fair’ fishing programme. Discarding refers to the process whereby unwanted fish caught are thrown back into the sea because they aren’t valuable enough or quotas have … Read more

Investigative journalists uncover truth behind decimated fish stocks in the Pacific

The latest “Looting the Seas” report by the ICIJ (International Consortium of Investigative Journalists) was published today. You may recall a few months ago, we discussed their investigation into illegal fishing, seafood fraud and runaway subsidies in Spain. This time, they turned their focus to the Pacific Ocean, specifically looking into how European, Asian and … Read more

Nemo at risk: Finding Nemo’s marine friends in trouble

It’s no secret that Finding Nemo is one of my absolute favorite movies, and apparently, I’m not alone in this. Finding Nemo was the second highest grossing movie in 2003, right behind The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (another favorite of mine…but I digress). So it was quite upsetting when I woke … Read more

Oceana: reform of EU fleet management strongly needed to effectively tackle overcapacity and rebuild fish stocks

Today, the European Court of Auditors (ECA) released their long-awaited analysis of the effectiveness of EU fleet management, which shows the systematic failure of fleet capacity reduction policies. Oceana is deeply concerned that even though the problematic nature of overcapacity has been recognized for over 20 years, the EU has been unable to properly address … Read more

New steps taken in support of a non- discard policy

Today , the Swedish, Danish and Norwegian fisheries ministers met with EU fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki at a seminar about the reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) in Stockholm. During this meeting they signed a declaration, announcing their intention to adopt a ban on discards. The prohibition for discards shall apply from 1 January … Read more