The European Commission (EC) is
A recent study by the EC shows that only 9 per cent of European fish stocks may be at sustainable levels by 2022 if the CFP is not revised.
“The CFP reform needs to have the recovery and long-term health of fish and marine ecosystems as its central goal,” the WWF urged. “With three out of four assessed fish stocks in Europe overfished, a fleet which continues to be two to three times too large to be sustainable, and a 30 per cent fall in landings at European Union (EU) ports between 1998 and 2008, prospects seem grim.”
Green NGOs claim that 62 per cent of stocks in the Atlantic ocean are overfished and 82 per cent of stocks are overfished in the Mediterranean Sea, reports TheParliament.com.
"Europe's fishing grounds were once among the most productive in the world, but 40 years of the CFP have resulted in serious depletion of fish populations, ecosystem degradation and damage to species, habitats and sites supposedly protected by EU environmental legislation,” Saskia Richartz of Greenpeace said.
"Fishing has become unsustainable, increasingly unprofitable and reliant on public subsidies. This in turn has led to poverty in coastal communities and an ever growing reliance on imported fish," she pointed out.
WWF thinks a successful CFP reform would:
• Ensure conservation goals such as ending overfishing and discards, achieving Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2015 and Good Environmental Status for EU waters by 2020.
• Establish clear and binding targets which must be met through Long-Term Management Plans (LTMPs) designed specifically for each fishery. These plans should be in place by 2015 and be co-managed by stakeholder groups at fisheries level.
• Provide a management framework for tailored solutions, such as Appropriate Rights Based Management (RBM) systems, which make fishers more accountable and gives them a more secure stake in the fishery, and catch quota management.
• Let the EU be a world leader in promoting sustainable fisheries globally by applying the new CFP to all fisheries and all EU vessels wherever they fish in the world, and by taking a leadership role in international management bodies such as the Regional Fisheries Management Organisations.
“Only a strong management framework which involves fishermen and other stakeholders can end the madness of the yearly quota negotiations and the disregard of scientific advice. We need an ambitious CFP reform to halt the man-made disaster happening in our seas,” stated WWF’s Head of European Marine & Fisheries Policy Louize Hill.
WWF will assess the Commission’s final Regulation text on how it delivers on the aforementioned major asks.
(Fis.com)