The European Commission is due to adopt an Action Plan to ‘protect and restore marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fishing’.
It calls for measures to phase out bottom trawling techniques, develop marine protected areas and improve the selectivity of fishing gear. Virginijus Sinkevičius, the Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, is expected to present the Action Plan in February, of which EUROPE has obtained a draft version, which stems in particular from the EU Biodiversity Strategy.
According to the Commission, only 12% of the EU’s seas are designated as protected areas and less than 1% are strictly protected. “We need to urgently step-up efforts at EU level to reverse the decline of marine ecosystems by addressing all pressures, including through more sustainable and modern fisheries management, to respect the commitment of the EU Biodiversity Strategy to legally protect 30% of our seas, of which one third is to be strictly protected, restore marine ecosystems, and encourage and inspire the world to follow”, the draft action plan reads.
The Commission states that it wants to “empower, support and accompany our fishers to lead the structural transition towards fishing practices that are less harmful to marine ecosystems and thus towards a future of EU fisheries that is more environmentally sustainable and therefore also socially and economically more viable”.
The action plan focuses on marine protected areas (MPAs). For these to be beneficial to nature and man, they must be managed effectively. This means “protecting fish spawning and nursery areas, managing fishing mortality rates, as well as restoring core areas for sensitive species and habitats”, the Commission writes. The Action Plan proposes measures to meet the EU’s commitments to establish the necessary fisheries management measures in all MPAs.
The EU Biodiversity Strategy’s target of protecting 30% of the EU’s seas by 2030 and strictly protecting one third of this area “requires Member States to designate new MPAs”.
More sustainable fishing practices. One of the chapters of the Action Plan emphasises the adverse environmental impacts of fishing with certain mobile bottom-contacting gears. “Bottom trawling, is among the most widespread and damaging activities to the seabed and its associated habitats, with the most intensely fished areas trawled more than 10 times a year”, says the Commission.
The Commission therefore calls on Member States to make full use of the tools available under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and to “make full use of the tools available under the CFP and take national measures and submit joint recommendations without delay, and with concrete and time-bound steps and actions to ensure a gradual phase out of mobile bottom fishing in all existing MPAs”. The Commission calls for the elimination of bottom trawling in MPAs by 2030.
In addition, measures are recommended to improve the selectivity of fishing gear and reduce the negative impacts on sensitive species and their habitats.
The actions requested from EU countries aim to minimise by-catches of the following species: - harbour porpoise in the Baltic and Black Seas, the Iberian Atlantic and the North Sea and the common dolphin in the Bay of Biscay (by the end of 2023); - angel shark, common skate, sturgeon, guitarfish, great white shark, sand tiger shark, Mediterranean monk seal and sea turtles (by the end of 2024).
Furthermore, by 2030, by-catch of all species with an unfavourable or endangered conservation status should be reduced.
The Commission also plans, by the end of 2023, to adopt implementing rules under Article 24 of the Technical Measures Regulation to improve the selectivity of fishing gear.
Link to a draft version of this Action Plan: https://aeur.eu/f/530 (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)