Oceana launches interactive platform to calculate benefits of sustainable fishing

“Catchy Data” allows users to explore new data for European Union countries

Press Release Date: September 10, 2018

Location: Madrid

Contact:

Marta Madina | email: mmadina@oceana.org | tel.: Marta Madina

A new interactive tool launched today by Oceana explores the potential socio-economic benefits of European Union (EU) countries moving away from current fishing practices. The launch comes ahead of a fisheries seminar organised by the European Commission on 14th September, which marks the start of discussions on fishing limits in 2019 for the Baltic, Deep-sea and Atlantic/North Sea fish stocks.

“Catchy Data” offers users for the first time estimates for each individual EU country, the results of rebuilding stocks and fishing at sustainable levels; how much catches of the key commercial species could increase, how many jobs could be created, potential net profits, gains for related industries, etc.

The data allows users to explore on their own, data that demonstrates that if the European Union were to fish sustainably we could in less than ten years fish almost 60% more, boost EU’s GDP by nearly 5 billion euros and create more than 90.000 jobs.

This is the first time that the economic and social benefits of rebuilding European fisheries are calculated for each EU country in such a comprehensive way,” said Lasse Gustavsson, Executive Director of Oceana in Europe.

With this new site, Oceana aims to empower interested stakeholders by making fisheries data easily accessible and clear but also to expand the understanding of the potential impact of ending overfishing,” Gustavsson explained.

Sankey diagram © Oceana 2018

The site is built on data originally from a study commissioned by Oceana in 2017 to research the socio-economic implications of fishing at sustainable levels in Europe. The study showed that if EU fisheries were sustainably managed, in addition to improving the health of our oceans, there would be substantial economic benefits in the form of boosted GDP and added jobs.

Oceana has continuously urged EU-decision makers to give up the short-term approach of setting unsustainable fish catch limits and instead take urgent action to put an end to overfishing in European waters once and for all.

The “Catchy Data” tool has been launched in advance of the Seminar on Fisheries Science by the European Commission (Brussels, 14th September), an event that marks the beginning of discussions on 2019 catch limits for the Baltic, Deep-sea and Atlantic/North Sea stocks.

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This release is also available in: Danish | French | Italian | Spanish