NGOs supporting the protection of fisheries resources called on EU fisheries ministers on Monday 17 December in Brussels to meet the 2020 deadline to end overfishing.
Ministers are meeting on Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 December in Brussels to set catch limits for fisheries for 2019 in the North-Eastern Atlantic and North Sea (see EUROPE 12160). They had a first round of discussions on Monday morning, confirming the difficulties on "stocks with limiting quotas", before the presentation of a first compromise text in the evening. Debates will resume on Tuesday, until late at night.
The NGO Oceana pointed out that “the EU could increase the amount of fish landings from the North-Eastern Atlantic and the North Sea by 56% to over 5 million tonnes”. if the Council set the 2019 quotas in line with scientific advice on the state of fish stocks. According to a study by this NGO, stock recovery would take less than 10 years and Denmark, France and the United Kingdom would be the countries that would benefit most from this increase of landings. In addition, if the end of overfishing was respected, employment in the fishing industry could increase from 36,437 to 49,456 (36% more). Lasse Gustavsson, Executive Director of Oceana Europe, acknowledged that progress has been made in recent years in compliance with scientific advice, but this progress is “too slow”.
Andrew Clayton, of the NGO The Pew Charitable Trusts, said that every year ministers push nature to its limits by setting fishing quotas that are too high. In 2018, 44% of the Total Allowable Catches (TACs) set by decision-makers still exceed scientific advice. Mr Clayton felt that more rapid progress was needed to meet the 2020 deadline for achieving maximum sustainable yield (MSY) for all fish stocks.
Monica Verbeek of Seas at Riskannounced the launch of the ‘Save #OurBlueLung’ campaign to encourage EU governments to take 20 steps to help end overfishing by 2020. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)