AGRIFISH: Some Baltic fish still in crisis as the EU starts to consider ecosystem impacts

Following the EU AGRIFISH Council press conference today, NGOs expressed disappointment that Member State fisheries ministers again haggled all night to raise Baltic fishing limits for 2022 above the European Commission’s proposal and against the clear scientific advice aimed at saving Baltic fish populations. However, NGOs also acknowledge that some progress was made towards considering … Read more

ICCAT takes important steps towards strengthening measures to combat IUU fishing

In June 2021, member countries of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT)’s Integrated Monitoring Measures (IMM) working group met online to discuss and consider the advancement of ICCAT’s conservation and management measures. During this meeting, IMM members reviewed a series of proposals including those intended to strengthen ICCAT’s measures aimed at combatting illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Among these was a proposal tabled … Read more

Closing 70% of Europe’s seas to bottom trawling: little loss to fishing sector but huge environmental gains

Advice by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) released today shows that reducing bottom-trawling efforts by 26% could result in protecting 70% of Europe’s Atlantic sea area with small impact on the fishing sector, while delivering huge benefits to the marine environment. These include restoring biodiversity and mitigating climate change. Nicolas … Read more

Overfishing rate back on the rise after a decade of recovery

Brussels. The rate of overfishing has increased in European waters, according to today’s report  by the European Commission on the state of play of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Oceana deplores this confirmation that the EU is moving further away from its legal commitment to exploit all harvested fish populations sustainably. To add to this, … Read more

Joint NGO recommendations on Baltic Sea fishing opportunities for 2022

1. Introduction In October 2021, EU fisheries ministers will agree on fishing opportunities in the Baltic Sea for 2022. As the deadline to end overfishing by 2020 at the latest as legally prescribed by Article 2(2) of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP)1 has passed, all fishing limits must be in line with sustainable exploitation rates. … Read more