Campaign: Sustainable Fisheries
France, Italy and Spain team up to delay EU overfishing deadline for the Mediterranean
Oceana has had access to a proposal by the fisheries ministers of Italy, France and Spain in which they agree to end overfishing in the Mediterranean by 2025. This would imply both a five-year delay to the legally-binding EU 2020 deadline and unfair treatment over other EU countries, an unacceptable political move for the most … Read more
Italian industry hijacks European Commission-funded body to influence EU Parliament decision on Mediterranean fisheries
Oceana has seen evidence revealing that an EU-funded body, the Mediterranean Advisory Council (MedAC), aligned with a portion of the Italian fishing industry to lobby MEPs and postpone the latest European Parliament vote on the Western Mediterranean Multiannual Plan, which could have decided the future of the most overexploited sea in the world. Senior figures … Read more
EU ditches long-term conservation of deep-sea marine life
After negotiations late into Monday evening, agriculture and fisheries ministers came to a disappointing deal on “fishing opportunities” in the European Atlantic waters for the next two years. The agreement affects deep-sea fish and sharks, and goes against recommended conservation measures for this vulnerable marine life and sustainable fishing in the Atlantic, Oceana warns. The … Read more
Recovering fish stocks and fully implementing the Landing Obligation
Summary The reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) was agreed in 2013 and entered into force on 1st January 2014. Among its many innovations, the 2013 regulation introduced, for the first time, a legal requirement to achieve the maximum sustainable yield (MSY) exploitation rate, as well as an obligation to land all catches. Both are inextricably … Read more
Oceana criticises UN and EU’s failure to protect areas for young fish in the Mediterranean, the world’s most overfished sea
The EU and Mediterranean countries have failed to protect critical fish nursery areas for commercial species that are already overfished, some of which stocks are near to collapse. Despite growing international concerns over the state and health of the Mediterranean – the sea with the most fish stocks heading towards depletion (above 80%) – the … Read more
Towards a Mediterranean network of EFH
One of the aspects behind the critical situation of Mediterranean stocks is the high exploitation rate of juveniles in many demersal fi sheries. The fisheries management in place today has brought most of assessed stocks outside safe biological limits (FAO, 2017) and some of them face a high risk of biological collapse, such ascommercially-important hake … Read more
EU Parliament votes to overfish the Atlantic Ocean
The European Parliament has today voted to water down its commitments made in 2013 to reform fisheries in the European Union (EU) and to manage all the bloc’s fisheries sustainably. MEPs, in a plenary session, favoured fishing at levels that still make overfishing possible, a move criticised by Oceana. Lasse Gustavsson, executive director for Oceana … Read more
Oceana statement on UK Fisheries Bill
On the release of the UK Fisheries Bill today, Oceana has issued the following statement from Lasse Gustavsson, executive director of Oceana Europe: “The UK Fisheries Bill comes amid a growing global movement to protect the oceans. But the reality is that 4 out of 10 fish stocks surrounding the UK are still overfished meaning … Read more
