The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries (PECH) formally adopted today a political agreement on a multiannual plan for demersal species (mostly found at the bottom of the ocean) in the western Mediterranean Sea. The plan will not end overfishing by 2020 but will now extend the sustainable fishing deadline to 2025, therefore failing to rebuild … Read more
Oceana warns emergency closures to fishing could be only option to fix Mediterranean fish crisis and to comply with EU law The European Parliament voted today to adopt the first-ever multiannual plan for fishing in the Western Mediterranean Sea but rejected the necessary conservation measures that would fix the region’s overfishing crisis, where over 80% … Read more
The EU could increase the amount of fish landings from the North-Eastern Atlantic and the North Sea by 56%, up to more than 5 million tonnes, if tomorrow’s Council of Ministers approves catch limits in line with scientific advice. A study by Oceana found that the recovery would take less than ten years, and that … Read more
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
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
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
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
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
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
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We have already protected nearly 4 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea life - but there is still more to be done.
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