EU ministers need to show some backbone and end overfishing | WPN World People News

Fisheries ministers from 28 European countries are meeting in Brussels Monday to agree 2015 fishing quotas for most stocks, including those in the Atlantic, the North Sea and the Black Sea. To remind European leaders of their responsibility to restore fish stocks, Greenpeace activists demonstrated outside the building where ministers are meeting. With the aid of several large helium balloons, activists floated a nine-metre-wide banner of an empty underwater world, assembled from hundreds of photographs of people protesting against overfishing.

New fishing rules in place since early 2014 require EU countries to end overfishing starting in 2015 and to promote a shift to low-impact fisheries.

Greenpeace EU fisheries policy director Saskia Richartz said: “It’s time for ministers to show some backbone and end overfishing now. Where fishing quotas are being reduced in line with scientific recommendations, fish stocks can recover, and if low-impact fishermen are supported, fishing communities can thrive for generations to come.”

“Small-scale fishermen are being forced out of work because governments have put fishing quotas into the wrong hands, and backed companies that deplete and destroy our seas. As we look to 2015, Greenpeace demands that low-impact fishermen are given the lion’s share of the quotas, while keeping overall fishing within sustainable limits,” added Richartz.

Small-scale, low-impact fishermen have been side-lined by politics and muscled out by big industry players. The EU fishing fleet has grown to an unsustainable size and uses too many destructive practices. Last month, Greenpeace exposed 20 of the most destructive and oversized fishing vessels operating under European flags, ownership or management. The 20 vessels – or ‘monster boats’ - have been singled out because of their enormous capacity to catch fish and their impact on overexploited fish stocks, vulnerable marine species and habitats.

Around 40 percent of fish stocks in the North East Atlantic and over 90 percent in the Mediterranean are overfished. Despite repeated calls by the EU’s scientific advisory body to further reduce catches, ministers have often set fishing quotas at significantly higher than recommended levels, under pressure from Europe’s oversized industrial fishing fleet. For instance, North Sea cod has been overfished for years, jeopardising its reproductive capacity. While scientists have recommended further cuts, ministers are likely to request an increase in quotas.

Source: Greenpeace EU Unit