The European Commission may soon approve a decision to notify the Republic of Cameroon that it may be listed as a non-cooperating third country in the fight against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
This would be Cameroon’s first yellow card for illegal fishing. The European Commission and Cameroon will collaborate to address weaknesses in the monitoring system for fishing activities.
Regulation 1005/2008 establishes a system to prevent, deter and eliminate IUU fishing. It allows for identifying non-cooperating third countries and trade sanctions as a last resort (banning the import of fishery products caught by fishing vessels flying the flag of the countries concerned into the EU) (https://bit.ly/3rwGyw2 ).
The fight against illegal fishing must go digital. On Wednesday 10 February, ClientEarth’s lawyers published new research confirming that EU countries urgently need an EU-wide digital system to track and prevent illegal fish imports, which cost the fishing industry billions of euros every year.
The study examined the decade-long fight against illegal fishing in Spain and suggests that EU member states use the latest technology to combat IUU fishing.
The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries has just voted in favour of ‘CATCH’, an EU-wide online system that would upload all catch certificates for imported fish. ClientEarth calls on all EU countries to quickly step up the fight against IUU fishing by immediately implementing the catch monitoring system voluntarily, rather than waiting for it to become mandatory.
Link to the first ClientEarth report: https://bit.ly/3a5RIBZ and the second report: https://bit.ly/3jA6BzC (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)