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Geneva, March 20, 2023:- Responding to today’s publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Synthesis Report (SYR), Our Fish called on the European Commission and EU Member States to rapidly escalate their actions to immediately transition to a low impact low carbon fishing fleet, and finalise the elimination of fuel tax subsidies for the fishing industry through the review of the European Taxation Directive this year.

“Today’s IPCC report could not be clearer – the culmination of years of work from expert scientists around the world shows that climate chaos is already causing widespread painful damage to people’s health, food security, and nature – we must do everything possible to reduce emissions and limit warming to 1.5 degrees before 2030, to avoid losing most of the world’s coral reefs, and entire ocean ecosystems that support billions of lives in Europe and around the world”, said Our Fish Program Director Rebecca Hubbard.

“The EU has an obligation, as one of the richest regions, to lead international cooperation on climate action”, she added. “Support for our fishing fleet and ocean ecosystems is the perfect place to demonstrate this global commitment, and should include delivering an urgent end to EU fossil fuel subsidies, accelerating the transformation to low carbon, electric alternatives, and protecting carbon engineers such as fish and the seabed’s carbon storing capabilities, from destruction”.

“The EU should leverage the climate protecting power of the ocean, which is far cheaper, scalable and manageable than pursuing fossil fuel-funded pipe dreams such as carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide removal in the ocean, which are costly and potentially have massive and unknown impacts.”

“When EU Member State governments and staff members of the European Commission are considering whether they should stop overfishing or stop destructive fishing disturbing carbon stored in the seabed or stopping fossil fuel subsidies, they must consider the following: Every fraction of a degree matters, every action matters, every year matters. It’s not coming down the line. We are at the end of the line, and we need to make decisions like our lives depend on it, because they do”, concluded Hubbard.

ENDS

Contact: 

Dave Walsh, press@our.fish, +34 691 826 764

 

Notes:

[1] Revised schedule of the IPCC Synthesis Report

https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/09/09/media-advisory-revised-schedule-ar6-synthesis-report/

 

[2] IPCC AR6 Synthesis Report (SYR)

https://www.ipcc.ch/ar6-syr/

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/

 

According to IPCC procedures the Synthesis Report (SYR) should “synthesise and integrate materials contained within the Assessment Reports and Special Reports” and “should be written in a non-technical style suitable for policymakers and address a broad range of policy-relevant but policy-neutral questions approved by the Panel”.

 

[3] The AR6 SYR is based on the content of the three Working Groups Assessment Reports: WGI – The Physical Science Basis, WGII – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability, WGIII – Mitigation of Climate Change, and the three Special Reports: Global Warming of 1.5°C, Climate Change and Land, The Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate

 

[4] 9 August 2021: IPCC: Our Fish Calls on EU to End Overfishing in Response to Climate Crisis

https://our.fish/press/ipcc-our-fish-calls-on-eu-to-end-overfishing-in-response-to-ocean-climate-crisis/

 

[5] 05 April 2022: IPCC Report: EU Must End Dangerous, Radical Funding of Fossil Fuels for Fishing Industry

https://our.fish/press/ipcc-report-eu-must-end-dangerous-radical-funding-of-fossil-fuels-for-fishing-industry/

 

About Our Fish

Our Fish is working to end overfishing and restore a healthy ocean ecosystem.

By collaborating with others, and deploying robust evidence, we are calling for an end to overfishing as a critical and significant action to address the biodiversity and climate crisis.

https://our.fish/

 

 

 

 

Brussels, 21 February 2023:- Responding to the European Commission’s publication today of a package of EU Action Plans aimed at addressing the biodiversity and climate crises in the ocean and fisheries, Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard said:

“The ocean’s ability to provide us with life support systems like food and carbon sequestration is under threat as a result of the increasingly severe impacts of overfishing, human-induced climate change and pollution, yet the European Commission has today delivered inaction plans that fail to jump the chasm from lofty rhetoric to a roadmap for meaningful action that would both transform European fisheries and address the planetary crisis”.

Born out of the European Green Deal and President von der Leyen’s commitment to address the nature and climate crises, The EU Action Plan: Protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries (“Marine action plan”), along with the EU Action Plan: Energy transition of EU fisheries and aquaculture, and the Functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) report, were released on February 21, following months of delay [2,3,4].

“While we welcome the European Commission’s Marine Action Plan’s proposal to map seabed carbon and the impact of bottom trawling in EU waters, the proposal is too little, too slow and fails to address extraction of fish and CO2 emissions”, said Hubbard. “The EU must end the ploughing up of seabed carbon stores, the excessive removal of the ocean’s carbon engineers such as fish, and the CO2 emissions from vessels burning subsidised fossil fuel. These practices are neither good fisheries management nor good carbon management and the Commission’s Marine Action Plan fails to put this right within the urgent timeframes we need.”

“More positively, in its report on the Evaluation of the functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy, the European Commission has taken important steps forward in committing to develop an economic tool that properly values natural marine ecosystem services to society and developing a guide for EU member states to utilise environmental, social and economic criteria for the allocation of fishing quota. By allocating access to fish based on environmental or social performance criteria, the EU can drive the transition to a low-carbon, low-impact fishing fleet that restores the ocean and delivers thriving fisheries.”

“However the proposed EU Action Plan: Energy transition of EU fisheries and aquaculture appears to be more of a discussion paper than an ‘action plan’. An economic incentive is clearly needed to drive the decarbonisation of the EU fishing sector, along with a financial penalty for failing to implement it. In addition, the Energy Taxation Directive must eliminate all fuel subsidies, while the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) must be updated to require that at least 35% of any support goes to transitioning to low impact and low carbon fishing – anything less is gross hypocrisy.”

“This Commission and European Parliament have just over a year left in their mandates, yet the climate and biodiversity emergency does not stand for election or wait for endorsement. The time for grand talk is over – Our Fish is calling on the European Commission and EU member state governments to ditch the rhetoric and take definitive action, by immediately beginning to implement and strengthen the measures described in these proposals, and for Members of the European Parliament to support them in doing so”, concluded Hubbard.

In May 2021, sixteen European NGOs published a detailed ‘shadow action plan’ to provide key recommendations for the European Commission’s Action plan to conserve fisheries resources and protect marine ecosystems and to demonstrate the level of ambition and timeline that we expect it to deliver [5].

 

ENDS

 

Contact: Dave Walsh, press@our.fish, +34 691 826 764

 

Notes:

[1] Fisheries, aquaculture and marine ecosystems: transition to clean energy and ecosystem protection for more sustainability and resilience

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_828

[2] EU Action Plan: Protecting and restoring marine ecosystems for sustainable and resilient fisheries

https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/publications/communication-commission-eu-action-plan-protecting-and-restoring-marine-ecosystems-sustainable-and_en

 

[3] Evaluation of the functioning of the Common Fisheries Policy

https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/publications/common-fisheries-policy-today-and-tomorrow-fisheries-and-oceans-pact-towards-sustainable-science_en

[4] EU Action Plan: Energy transition of EU fisheries and aquaculture

https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/publications/communication-commission-energy-transition-eu-fisheries-and-aquaculture-sector_en

[5] Joint NGO Shadow Action Plan: Realising the Ambition of the EU Biodiversity Strategy in the Ocean: Key recommendations for the European Commission’s Action plan to conserve fisheries resources and protect marine ecosystems

 

About Our Fish

Our Fish is working to end overfishing and restore a healthy ocean ecosystem.

By collaborating with others, and deploying robust evidence, we are calling for an end to overfishing as a critical and significant action to address the biodiversity and climate crisis.

https://our.fish/

 

 

 

 

Brussels, 21 February 2023:- While the European Commission has just published the EU Action Plan: Energy transition of EU fisheries and aquaculture, NGOs criticised its lack of ambition, and the absence of concrete actions and strong guidelines – that would enable EU Member States to drive the process of decarbonisation of the fishing sector [1].

The urgent decarbonisation of the sector

The European Commission’s Energy Transition plan for EU fisheries comes as an important response to ongoing failure by EU Member States and the fishing industry to commence the much-needed decarbonisation of the sector.

The European fishing industry directly emits about 7.3 million tons of CO2 annually – about the same amount as Malta – by burning 2.3 billion litres of fossil fuel to power its engines. The carbon stored by the top layer of marine sediments is nearly double the amount contained in all terrestrial surface soils, but destructive fishing gears like bottom trawling disturbs and resuspends the carbon stored in the seabed and may be released back into the atmosphere.

A lack of strong guidelines

ClientEarth, Our Fish, Seas At Risk and BLOOM found that while the EU Action Plan lists actions facilitating dialogue and exchanges among scientists, decision-makers and industry, it fails to provide clear actions that would require Member States to set transition targets and redirect financing towards the energy transition.

“The proposed EU Action Plan is more of a discussion paper than an Action Plan. What is fundamentally needed to drive the decarbonisation of the EU fishing sector is an economic incentive to drive it, while issuing a financial penalty for failing to do so. The EU and the Member States must eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies in the revised Energy Taxation Directive and the European Maritime Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund (EMFAF) must be updated to require that at least 35% of any support goes to transitioning to low impact and low carbon fishing – anything less is gross hypocrisy,” said Rebecca Hubbard, Program Director at Our Fish.

“The energy crisis has exposed a lack of planning and vulnerability in the EU fishing sector, and has stressed the need to move even more quickly and strategically away from business as usual. EU funds and national funds must not be used to subsidise fuel for fishing vessels – it contradicts the pursuit of the energy transition, which is being driven at in parallel. The European Commission must provide EU Member States with strong guidelines on how to support the transition, how to move away from energy-intensive and destructive fishing practices and how to direct EU funds and national State aids towards the goal of decarbonisation. Small-scale and artisanal fishers should be supported as a matter of priority in the decarbonisation process.’” said Flaminia Tacconi, Senior Lawyer at ClientEarth.

Decarbonisation must not be an opportunity to maintain destructive fishing methods

“Directly or indirectly subsidising fossil fuels for fisheries can no longer be justified in the context of the climate emergency. Bottom trawling, among the most destructive fishing techniques – acknowledged as such by the European Commission in its marine action plan published today – is not only highly fuel-intensive but also releases sequestered carbon from the seabed and interferes with the carbon cycle. While the energy transition plan fails to address the urgently needed move away from this fishery, an encouraging step in the European Commission’s proposal in the Marine Action Plan is its plan to assess the impact of bottom fishing on the release of CO2 from the seabed in order to have a realistic knowledge of the CO2 emissions released by fishing activities”, said Monica Verbeek, executive director of Seas At Risk.

“We have identified dangerous caveats in the European Commission’s Communication on the energy transition of the fishing sector which has apparently not learned the lesson from the scandalous cases of electric fishing and demersal seining: the decarbonisation of the fishing sector must not be used as a new Trojan horse by industrial lobbies to perpetuate destructive methods. Equipping trawlers with electric engines or “the adoption of ‘flying’ or lighter trawl doors that reduce drag” are a fraud, said Valérie Le Brenne, Project manager at BLOOM. “At this stage, the Commission’s action plan is clearly geared towards maintaining industrial and large-scale fisheries rather than preserving small-scale coastal fisheries, which are the most selective and sustainable, and the most likely to move quickly to a low-carbon model”, she adds. “It’s a shame”.

“To remedy this, the European Commission should analyse EU member states’ application of Article 17, which requires states to allocate quotas based on environmental, social and economic criteria, and propose example criteria including seabed impacts and CO2 emissions, to incentivise the transition to low-carbon fishing, with targets and timelines. Existing active EU fishing fleet capacity should not be increased during the process of adopting new technologies”, added Rebecca Hubbard [2].

 

ENDS

Contacts:

Dave Walsh, Our Fish press@our.fish, +34 691 826 764

Diane Vandesmet, ClientEarth, DVandesmet@clientearth.org; +32 493 41 22 89

 

Notes:

[1] EU Action Plan: Energy transition of EU fisheries and aquaculture

https://oceans-and-fisheries.ec.europa.eu/publications/communication-commission-energy-transition-eu-fisheries-and-aquaculture-sector_en

[2] Common Fisheries Policy Regulation TITLE II, Specific measures, Article 17

Article 17 requires Member States to allocate fishing opportunities using transparent and objective criteria with a focus on social, environmental, and economic criteria, including for example, the use of fishing gears with low environmental impact and reduced energy consumption.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32013R1380&from=EN

 

27/10/21: EU Holds Key To Just Transition to Low-Carbon, Low-Impact Fishing Industry – Report

In this report, How the EU can Transition to Low Environmental Impact, Low Carbon, Socially Just Fishing, published by the Our Fish Campaign and Low Impact Fishers of Europe (LIFE) finds that by activating Article 17 of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), and allocating fishing quotas based on transparent and objective criteria of an environmental, social and economic nature, the EU can achieve a just transition to a low-carbon, low-impact fishing fleet.

https://our.fish/press/eu-holds-key-to-just-transition-to-low-carbon-low-impact-fishing-industry-report/

 

Website: https://decarbonisenow.eu/

 

 

 

 

Response to the Leaked EU Action Plan, reported by Euractiv and elsewhere:

“The EU’s Action Plan summarises many of the challenges facing the ocean, and proposes a few baby steps to address them – but great strides are needed to match the accelerating marine ecosystem decline. The European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevičius needs to jump the chasm between rhetoric and action: by fully implementing the Common Fisheries Policy, especially the provisions that prioritise low impact fishing, and delivering an accelerated and ambitious Energy Transition Action Plan for the fishing industry, he would truly be acting on the climate and biodiversity crises”, said Rebecca Hubbard, Program Director of Our Fish.

“The EU must end the ploughing up of seabed carbon stores and the excessive removal of the ocean’s carbon engineers – such as fish. This is not good fisheries management or good carbon management and the Commission’s Action Plan fails to fix this within the urgent timeframes we need. We are now looking to the Commission to publish a review of the Common Fisheries Policy which allows for a clear and meaningful transition plan to low impact and low carbon fishing without delay.”

Contact: press@our.fish

 

 

 

EU fisheries ministers fail to adequately protect critically endangered European eel and other vulnerable fish species during quota negotiations for 2023

Brussels, 13 December 2022: Today, after a marathon meeting that ran all through the night, EU fisheries ministers have reached an agreement on the fishing opportunities for 2023. Although EU Member States have been legally obliged to set all fishing limits at sustainable levels since 2020, they have again failed to do so for some of the most vulnerable fish stocks.

“Ministers pay lip service to sustainability but, behind closed doors, they again choose short-term profitability over long-term wellbeing of the people and our planet” says Hélène Buchholzer, Fisheries Policy Officer at Seas At Risk. “Ministers’ systematic failure in setting sustainable fishing quotas for the most vulnerable species is alarming, as it erodes the ocean ecosystems we all depend upon.” 

The reluctance to take decisive measures is particularly notable for the critically endangered European eel. Despite the need for protection, it continues to be fished across most of its natural range. The scientific advice for 2023 is zero catches in all habitats for all life stages, including glass eel for restocking and aquaculture. Yet, parallel to efforts to protect biodiversity in Montreal, Member States were fighting proposed restrictions on their eel fisheries.

“The scientific advice is very clear – no fishing for eel can be considered sustainable. Instead, we need to do everything we can to stop all mortality of this critically endangered species and restore lost habitats.” says Niki Sporrong at the Fisheries Secretariat. “The Commission put forward a clear proposal to protect the peak migration in EU waters. After member states pushed back all night, the effectiveness of the complex agreement now announced is difficult to assess and leaves many potential loopholes. Overall, it is not the deal for eel we were hoping for.”

Fisheries Ministers also discussed fisheries for vulnerable deep-sea fish, these are species all grow slow and mature late, making them particularly vulnerable to overfishing. The scientific advice for many of them is that all fishing should stop or be greatly reduced.  Although these quotas officially are set jointly with the UK the bulk of the fishery is done by EU countries (France, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark).

“Sadly the EU member states weren’t able to turn a page on deep-sea conservation and decided to once again go over the scientific advice for several stocks. This flagrant disregard of the precautionary principle threatens not only the deep-sea stocks and ecosystems, but also the communities that still depend on them.” said Gonçalo Carvalho, Executive Coordinator of Sciaena. 

Since Brexit came into force 3 years ago the fishing quota negotiations have become a complex process of interlinked, closed door meetings. This opaque process makes public scrutiny of choices made increasingly hard, and although the negotiation outcomes should be based on scientific advice on sustainable catch limits this is quite often ignored.

Early next year the European Commission is expected to finally publish its long awaited review on the implementation of the Common Fisheries Policy as well as an ‘Action plan to conserve fisheries resources and protect marine ecosystems’. Both will be crucial milestones in the implementation of the European Green Deal and Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and today’s decisions should thus also be seen as a benchmark for the future ambition.

“While scientists warn that fisheries need specific conservation rebuilding plans in the face of escalating climate change impacts, EU fisheries ministers refuse to acknowledge that more precautionary fisheries management will also deliver much-needed benefits and resilience to fish, ecosystem and fishers,” says Rebecca Hubbard from Our Fish. “This is a particularly stark contrast between science and politics while the UN Convention on Biological Diversity is underway in Montreal, and demonstrates the EU is still into talking big, but not acting on climate or biodiversity.” 

NOTES:

NGOs’ letter urges EU and UK leaders to end overfishing of shared stocks – Seas at Risk (seas-at-risk.org)

ENDS

Contacts:

Niki Sporrong, European Eel Project Manager, FishSec, +46 708 531225, niki.sporong@fishsec.org

Sara Tironi, Seas At Risk Communication officer +32 483 457 483 stironi@seas-at-risk.org

Dave Walsh, Our Fish Communications Advisor, +34 691 826 764 press@fish.eu

Gonçalo Carvalho, Executive Coordinator, Sciaena, +351936257281, gcarvalho@sciaena.org

 

 

Sharm El-Sheikh, 11 November 2022:- Fish are Carbon Engineers – that’s the message of a briefing paper released today at COP27 by the Our Fish campaign, which is urging political leaders to act decisively to mainstream good fisheries management as effective carbon management within UNFCCC and UN processes. The paper was presented during today’s “Fish are Carbon Engineers” breakfast side event at the COP27 Ocean Pavilion (video will be available).

The event featured speakers from the scientific community and civil society discussing evidence in support of good fisheries management as effective carbon management, and opportunities for maximising this to deliver on climate action commitments. 

“World leaders must take urgent action to protect the ocean carbon system so that fish can do their job as carbon engineers – capturing, sequestering and storing carbon”, said Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard. 

“COP27 is being dubbed the ‘Implementation COP’, because we urgently need implementation of more ambitious commitments to avoid climate breakdown; our message is that world leaders can implement climate action quickly by supporting ecosystem-based fisheries management as good carbon management, whilst also improving resilience and adaptation,” said Ms Hubbard.

“Fish, like whales and plankton, are part of the ocean biological pump, the system constantly at work capturing and storing carbon from Earth’s atmosphere”, said Dr. Emma Cavan, Research Fellow, Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London. “Good fisheries Management can help to conserve that system. World leaders at COP27 must understand that fish are carbon engineers and act upon that knowledge by using ecosystem-based fisheries management to aid them in this vital job – restoring their populations, conserving food webs, and prohibiting activities that are destructive to seabeds and ecosystems.” 

According to Fish are Carbon Engineers, “Unless urgent and comprehensive action is taken, we are heading towards societal collapse as a result of breaching multiple planetary boundaries [1]. Restoring fish populations would play a critical role in maintaining the ocean’s considerable potential to deliver climate action, while delivering multiple co-benefits”.

Our Fish urges national leaders at COP27 to:

• List and implement ecosystem based fisheries management as carbon management in their NDCS, by minimising carbon and ecosystem impacts of fishing.
• Remove fuel tax subsidies that fuel overfishing and climate breakdown
• Ensure that the annual Ocean & Climate Change Dialogue develops concrete, action-oriented goals that will support countries to deliver ocean-climate action such as managing fisheries sustainably. 
• Recognise the outcomes of the Ocean & Climate Change Dialogue 2022 in the overarching decision, and support mainstreaming ocean-climate action within the UNFCCC and other UN bodies.
• Increase knowledge, capacity and funding for ocean-climate action, including broadening the blue carbon accounting system to include fish. 
• Recognise and incorporate ocean-based climate action as reflected in the 2022 UN Ocean Conference and Political Declaration [2].

 

Download pdf: Fish are Carbon Engineers

Video will be available on the event page later in the day

See also: COP27 Comes to Brussels with Message: Fish are Carbon Engineers

Contact: Dave Walsh, press@our.fish, +34 691 826 764

 

Notes:

[1] United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (2022). Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction 2022: Our World at Risk: Transforming Governance for a Resilient Future. Geneva. ISBN: 9789212320281

[2] 2022 United Nations Conference to Support the Implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development Lisbon, 27 June–1 July 2022

 

About Our Fish

Our Fish is working to end overfishing and restore a healthy ocean ecosystem.

By collaborating with others, and deploying robust evidence, we are calling for an end to overfishing as a critical and significant action to address the biodiversity and climate crisis.

https://our.fish/

 

Brussels, 9 November 2022:- As the COP27 summit meeting kicked off this week in Egypt, Members of the European Parliament, EU Commission officials and passersby were invited to decipher a large pyramid puzzle in Brussels, to unlock the crucial role that fish play as the ocean’s carbon engineers – while being plied with baklava and Egyptian spiced coffee. 

The puzzle, which appeared outside both the European Parliament and the European Commission, challenged players to construct a pyramid representing the ocean biological pump, before inviting them to send a COP27 postcard to European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries Virginijus Sinkevičius, urging him to deliver effective fisheries management as good carbon management. A briefing paper Fish are Carbon Engineers, will be presented during a November 11 official side event at the COP27 Ocean Pavilion in Sharm El-Sheikh (details for live streaming here, contact press@our.fish for more details).

 

“With COP27 kicking off in Egypt this week, we’ve challenged EU policymakers to unlock the ocean’s carbon puzzle and grow understanding of the crucial role of fish and the ocean in protecting our planet’s climate”, said Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard. “Fish, like whales and plankton, are carbon engineers of the ocean biological pump, the system constantly at work capturing and storing excess carbon from the atmosphere.”

Carmen Preising, Deputy Head of Cabinet to the European Commissioner for Environment, Oceans and Fisheries receives the COP27 Postcard from Our Fish Programme Director Rebecca Hubbard at the European Commission, Brussels, 8 November 2022.

The biological pump is the engine of the ocean, fuelled by billions of fish and marine animals that interact daily as components of a complex system, providing the means to capture excess carbon from the atmosphere, and to retain it. The carbon stored by the top layer of marine sediments due to this process is nearly double the amount contained in all terrestrial surface soils. However, the annual extraction of around 80 million tonnes of fish worldwide removes significant amounts of “blue carbon” from the ocean, releasing it into the atmosphere. This has almost halved fish’s biogeochemical impact on the ocean in the last century, significantly weakening its capacity for climate mitigation. 

“The EU must grasp that good fisheries management is good carbon management –  it is a practical and critical climate solution. Good fisheries management means not taking too many fish out of the ocean; banning practices which damage the seabed and breakdown the food web, and decarbonising the fishing fleet”, said Hubbard.

 

“Regardless of what happens at COP27, the EU has the means and the power to take action on climate change by putting its fisheries on a pathway to becoming low-impact and low-carbon. This must include removing fuel tax subsidies through the Energy Taxation Directive review and a clear requirement for Ecosystem & Climate Impact Assessments of fishing activities in the Ocean Action Plan: good fisheries management is good carbon management”, concluded Hubbard.

Learn more in our Fish are Carbon Engineers briefing paper, which will be formally launched at COP27’s Ocean Pavilion on November 11. 

Our Fish’s Bec Hubbard call on EU to deliver ocean action plan that minimises climate impact of fishing.

Our Fish’s Bec Hubbard speaks about how the EU can take climate action through better fisheries management, regardless of what happens at COP27.

ENDS

Contact: Dave Walsh,  communications advisor, press@our.fish, +34 691 826 764

 

About Our Fish

Our Fish is working to end overfishing and restore a healthy ocean ecosystem.

By collaborating with others, and deploying robust evidence, we are calling for an end to overfishing as a critical and significant action to address the biodiversity and climate crisis.

https://our.fish/

 

 

Photo/video details. 

Press release from: The Fisheries Secretariat, Seas at Risk, Our Fish, Oceana, Coalition Clean Baltic, WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme  and the Danish Society for Nature Conservation

Baltic Sea EU member states choose to set some quotas at precautionary levels to safeguard depleted fish populations but fail to proactively protect declining herring and cod stocks in the Baltic ecosystem  

Luxembourg, 17 October 2022: Today, after an unprecedentedly short Fisheries Council meeting in Luxembourg, EU fisheries ministers have reached an agreement on the Baltic Sea fishing opportunities for 2023. With many populations on a downward trend and an ever increasing risk of ecosystem collapse, these negotiations presented a missed opportunity to set the Baltic Sea on a path to recovery and a sustainable fishery in the long term.

”This is the third year the Commission really made an effort to take wider ecosystem considerations and set more cautious catch levels, and once again the Ministers counteract those ambitions. We are still far away from a management that understands that the ecosystem needs cannot be negotiated”, says Nils Höglund from Coalition Clean Baltic.

“While, it is encouraging that the European Commission and Member States have been more transparent about their positions on fishing limits ahead of the Council meeting, as they have been evasive and opaque in the past, they now need to extend this transparency to an honest and public discussion about the importance of fish as carbon engineers of the ocean,” says Rebecca Hubbard from Our Fish. “There is an urgent need to restore fish populations so that they can continue to help sequester carbon and be more resilient to the worsening impacts of climate change.” 

In the run up to the Council meeting, the European Commission proposed setting catch limits for some species lower than the scientifically calculated maximum. This was done in the spirit of an ecosystem-based approach to fisheries management with the aim of protecting the severely depleted cod stocks in the Baltic. While the Member States chose to follow the progressive Commission’s proposal for plaice, a fishery with substantial cod bycatch, they opted to set quotas for sprat and Central Baltic herring higher than the Commission proposed.

“Sprat and herring are an essential food source for Eastern Baltic cod and we know cod struggle to find food now. It was great to see the Commission acknowledge this in the proposal” says Jan Isakson of the Fisheries Secretariat “It is very disappointing that Member States again choose short-term gains instead of helping the recovery of cod in the Baltic.”

Fisheries Ministers upheld the Commission’s proposal to not permit targeted fishing of eastern and western Baltic cod as well as western Baltic herring and only allow some bycatch to be landed. NGOs had recommended that in accordance with scientific advice zero catches should be allowed, not even as ‘unintentional’ bycatch in other fisheries.

“Although we understand a 100% bycatch-free fishery does not exist, we had hoped that decision makers would make any bycatch allowance conditional on the implementation of adequate catch recording using Remote Electronic Monitoring techniques” says Cathrine Pedersen Schirmer from the Danish Society for Nature Conservation DN. ”Denmark has recently implemented this method successfully in the Kattegat.”

“There is a great deal of evidence that the ecological state of the Baltic Sea is dire, but we should not forget that it is overfishing that is the main reason for the collapse of cod and western Baltic herring,” says fisheries campaign director at Oceana in Europe, Javier López. “To help recover Baltic Fish stocks and marine ecosystems, decision makers really need to do more to factor in interspecies relations and stressors like eutrophication and warming water when setting catch limits. ”

“Time is running out for the Baltic Sea. While Ministers today took good steps in the right direction by considering ecosystem interactions for several stocks, these steps are too small and don’t match the crisis state we are in”, said Christine Adams from Seas At Risk. “We need to rethink how we fish and how we can manage Baltic fisheries in an environmentally friendly and socially just way.”

On salmon catches the Council also accepted the Commission’s proposal as well as additional management considerations to safeguard weak salmon stocks. This result is perhaps the most encouraging of this Council’s meeting since it is in line with scientific advice and includes a shift in management that is needed, taking account of spatial and temporal measures strongly suggested by experts for more than 15 years.

“It is encouraging that every year we see a little more progress towards sustainability and taking some ecosystem elements into account when setting fishing quotas,” Says Johanna Fox, WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme Director. “But we need to accelerate the pace if the Baltic ecosystem is to recover. More protective measures are called for, including Remote Electronic Monitoring to secure effective fisheries control, the mandatory use of selective gears and better implementation of the Landing Obligation, as well as to allocate fishing quotas to fisheries with the least environmental impact.“

ENDS

Photo/video details. 

Contacts:

Jan Isakson, Director, FishSec, +46 70 608 74 83, jan.isakson@fishsec.org

Dave Walsh, Our Fish Communications Advisor, +34 691 826 764 press@fish.eu

Sara Tironi, Seas At Risk Communication officer +32 483 457 483 stironi@seas-at-risk.org

Emily Fairless, Oceana Communication officer,+32 478 038 490, efairless@oceana.org

Nils Höglund, Coalition Clean Baltic +46 707 679 249, nils@ccb.se

Hannah Griffiths Berggren, Communications officer, WWF Baltic Ecoregion Programme, hannah.griffiths.berggren@wwf.se, +46851511483

Cathrine Pedersen Schirmer, Chief adviser, Danmarks Naturfredningsforening/ Danish Society for Natur Conservation, Cathrine@dn.dk, +4531193226