Brussels, 13/05/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament stresses the need to introduce a ban on discards in deep-water fisheries “which would enable scientists to study with more precision the complex diversity of species, many of them inedible, being landed”. This was the wish expressed by the Parliament when a very large majority adopted, on 8 May in Brussels, an own-initiative report by Rosa Miguélez Ramos (PES, Spain), on management of deep-water fish stocks.
The EP also proposes that fishing should not be permitted in deep-sea areas where there has not yet been any fishing activity “until those areas have been investigated and the scientific evidence confirms that sustainable fishing may occur without risk of biodiversity depletion or habitat damage and the corresponding management measures are put in place”. Furthermore, by adopting an amendment submitted by the Group of European Socialists, the EP considers that, within the framework of measures to reduce by-catches and eliminate discards, the Commission “should vary the levels of fishing effort according to the species targeted and those caught merely by accident, whilst at the same time strengthening monitoring and control procedures”.
Collection of scientific data. MEPs call on the Commission to introduce new programmes for the collection of scientific data, if necessary using research vessels. The EP believes that one example might be that undertaken by the Spanish fisheries administration in the regulatory area of the North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission, mapping the Hatton Bank, where deep-water species are caught, and where the research focused on the distribution of seamounts, cold-water coral reefs and hydrothermal vents in order to identify sensitive zones in the areas in which fishing fleets operate. (L.C.)