France, Spain and Italy unite to breach EU fisheries law

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

European Parliament vote puts future of Mediterranean fishing on the line

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

Oceana uncovers dozens of cases of illegal fishing in protected areas in the Mediterranean

Version française | Versione italiana Oceana launched today a report uncovering 41 potential cases of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Mediterranean Sea using data from Global Fishing Watch. The findings were submitted and discussed at two governmental meetings of the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM)1, during which countries failed to provide clarification … Read more

Building a GFCM framework to combat IUU fishing

Monitor, control and surveillance are crucial to ensure proper fisheries management and to rebuild stocks, in particular in the Mediterranean Sea, where 80% of the stocks are considered to be outside biologically safe limits. The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) has taken significant steps in the last years towards reversing this situation, including … Read more

The Mediterranean: Illegal fishing in our backyard?

Being one of the busiest seas in the world, the Mediterranean is also a sea where illicit fishing activities still go unnoticed and thus unpunished…until now. Most of the cases of illegal fishing that make news in Europe seem to happen in far flung regions such as the Pacific or even the Antarctic. But such … Read more

La nuova proposta dell’UE non salva il Mediterraneo

Oceana lancia un appello all’UE per aumentare la profondità del divieto di pesca a strascico a 150 m durante tutto l’anno per invertire l’allarmante situazione di un mare sovrasfruttato.Il consiglio dell’UE inizia a dibattere oggi una nova proposta per un piano di gestione pluriennale degli stock ittici nel mar Mediterraneo occidentale. La nuova proposta della … Read more

Fisheries Restricted Areas

Fisheries Restricted Areas (FRAs) are spatial management measures adopted under the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean and Black Sea (GFCM) to regulate or restrict demersal fisheries in the high seas. Since 2006, a total of six FRAs have been established in the GFCM area, each under different management objectives. Three were established to protect … Read more