Brussels, 19/02/2013 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 19 February, MEPs revealed a number of disagreements with the European Commission's proposal to ban deep-sea trawling as a fishing method. At a hearing on deep-sea fishing organised by the European Parliament's Fisheries Committee, experts said that the state of deep-sea fish stocks remains of great concern, although it has improved in recent years due to management measures that have been introduced. The effects of trawling on marine ecosystems are viewed as disastrous. European fishermen, represented by Europêche, say that the Commission's plan to ban trawling and gillnets in order to protect deep-sea marine animals and vulnerable marine ecosystems are wholly unacceptable.
Kriton Arsenis (S&D, Greece), the Parliament rapporteur on the Commission's proposal to replace trawling with longline fishing, said that the way fish were caught had to be changed in order to prevent stocks from dying out and hence the end of fishing.
Tom Blasdale of ICES (the International Council for Exploration of the Sea) said that for blue ling, the biomass was now 20% below the starting level, but had been rising slightly in recent years. For grenadier, the biomass is 30% but restoration of stock levels is taking longer because the fish has a longer lifespan. The biomass of black scabbardfish is recovering, he said. Most deep-sea fish are at 30% of their starting levels, explained Blasdale, illustrating the vulnerability of fish stocks. We have gone from 25 fish per square kilometre to 7 per square kilometre from the start of fishing until 2005, he explained.
Philip P.E. Weaver, coordinator of Hotspot Ecosystem Research and Man's Impact on European Seas (HERMIONE), listed the serious environmental damage caused by trawling and backed the Commission's plans, but said that by changing practices it would be possible to do a lot..
There seems to be a kind of contradiction between the two presentations, said Struan Stevenson (CRE, UK), because on the one hand, ICES says that for a number of species, the management measures have managed to halt the decline, whereas on the other hand, Weaver says that a number of areas should be turned into sanctuaries where fishing is banned. Stevenson said the social aspect of the problem should not be ignored. Isabelle Thomas (S&D, France) said that zones could be introduced, in other words a gel d'empreinte, allowing fishing to continue in certain zones without touching zones still in a good state. John Stuart Agnew (ELD, UK) asked whether an assessment had been made of the effect of offshore wind-turbines on fish stocks. Alain Cadec (EPP, France) said there were contradictions between the two presentations because scientists say stocks are starting to recover. Rather than talking about scrapping trawling, it would be better to talk about good management, he said, asking the experts what they thought of gel d'empreinte as a management method (some coral reefs have been damaged). Carmen Fraga Estévez (EPP, Spain) also pointed out contradictions and said the Commission's proposal used an atomic bomb to kill a mouse. Jean-Paul Besset (Greens/EFA, France) did not agree with his colleagues about contradictions in the presentations, and said there were not too different versions opposing each other. Blasdale says that some fish stocks have stabilised, but Philip Weaver has studied the impact of deep-water fishing on the entire marine ecosystem, explained Besset, pointing out that for every four or five types of fish caught to be sold, 75 others are rejected.
Blasdale said that there was no contradiction between his presentation and that of Weaver. (LC/transl.fl)