Archives: news

  • Video: Ocean Avengers Message to EU Leaders – Ending Overfishing IS Climate Action!

    Video: Ocean Avengers Message to EU Leaders – Ending Overfishing IS Climate Action!

    Responding to an urgent appeal from EU Citizens, five Ocean Avengers – lead by Poseidon, God of the Sea, swooped on Brussels to deliver an urgent ultimatum to heads of state attending an EU Council meeting: “Take emergency climate action now! Instruct your fisheries ministers to end overfishing at the EU AGRIFISH Council Meeting”

    Take action!

    Press release: Ocean Avengers Deliver Ultimatum to EU Prime Ministers: End Overfishing

  • Taking COP25 – the Blue Cop – to Bergen

    Taking COP25 – the Blue Cop – to Bergen

    Delegates arriving for this morning’s session of the EU-Norway Fisheries consultation were met by a troupe of flamboyant flamenco dancers to highlight the link between the UN climate change negotiations in Madrid and the need for the EU and Norway to deliver on their ambitions for climate action by ending overfishing of shared fish populations, which would increase the ocean’s capacity to mitigate climate change.

    Learn more: Fisheries Officials Feel Heat as Flamenco Brings COP25 to EU-Norway Meeting

  • Depleted fish stocks can’t wait. The EU and Norway need to commit to ending overfishing now

    Depleted fish stocks can’t wait. The EU and Norway need to commit to ending overfishing now

    First published on Euronews, 2 December 2019: Depleted fish stocks can’t wait. The EU and Norway need to commit to ending overfishing now

    This week, in a quiet street in the Norwegian harbour town of Bergen, officials from EU member states and Norway will hole up in the Fiskeridirektoratet, or Fisheries Directorate, to decide the size of the fish pie to get divided out between them from so-called “shared stocks.” This “consultation,” as it is known, happens away from public scrutiny. Yet, fishing industry lobbyists are allowed in where they get to cosy up to delegates, while civil society representatives are – quite literally – left out in the cold. These annual gatherings are even more secretive than the EU AGRIFISH council meetings, which were recently investigated by the EU Ombudsman and found to be lacking in transparency.

    EU-Norway consultations consistently result in agreements to continue overfishing. This is in no small part due to a bewilderingly flawed approach: by assuming the scientific advice for maximum sustainable catches as a starting point and then negotiating upwards. The EU committed to phase out overfishing under the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) by 2015 or, at the absolute latest, by 2020. Yet while the act of catching too many fish occurs at sea, it is inside meetings like this where overfishing is shamelessly agreed upon and approved.

    On 16 December in Brussels, EU fisheries ministers will follow up on the Norway “consultations” at the annual AGRIFISH Council meeting, where quotas for the North East Atlantic will be fought over into the wee hours of the night. According to all the signs, this year they will again agree to overfish several key stocks.

    The signals? Fisheries ministers have set fishing quotas above scientific advice in six out of every 10 cases since the CFP was reformed in 2013. The AGRIFISH Council very rarely sets fishing quotas at more sustainable levels than the EU Commission proposes. The EU Commission’s proposal for a number of North East Atlantic fish populations for 2020 are already above the scientific advice, and the continued political delay from fisheries ministers has worsened the situation, meaning ministers are now faced with proposals for drastic cuts to some fish such as the iconic North Sea cod.

    Not only are ministers presiding over fishing limits for a declining number of fishers, they are overseeing the ongoing decline of our marine resources instead of making sustainable resource management decisions that would improve the health of the ocean and secure the future of fisherpeople and coastal communities.

    The recent ground-breaking IPBES Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimated humanity is threatening a million species with extinction. It also concluded that the biggest threats to nature are from changes to land/sea use and over-exploitation. Overfishing remains the biggest impact on our ocean.

    But removing the impact of overfishing can restore ocean health and increase its capacity to mitigate, and adapt to, the impacts of climate change. It is therefore a key form of climate action. This has started to permeate into policy. On 19 November, the EU Council, in response to the recent IPCC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere, appealed to the EU Commission for policy options in the new Green Deal, while stating the need for urgent action to address the increasing threat of climate breakdown to the ocean and marine life.

    So, missing the deadline of 2020 puts the EU in difficult territory. It places EU fisheries ministers in direct contravention of the laws that they, or their predecessors, created and signed up to, and in potential conflict with the climate action taken by other ministries within their own governments.

    Norway, too, has invested a great deal in projecting itself as a climate and anti-overfishing champion, when in actual fact, it too, is hypocritical on both issues. On climate, Norway has made big commitments to become a ‘low-carbon society’ but in reality, emissions are decreasing much slower. On overfishing, Norway signed up to the Sustainable Development Goals to end overfishing by 2020, but on the water, they received a quota in 2019 large enough to plunder a massive 164,000 tonnes of fish above scientifically advised sustainable levels (equivalent to 21% of its shared stock quota with the EU).

    While Norway and the EU discuss how best to continue overfishing in Bergen, further south, delegates at the COP25 climate meeting in Madrid focus on the ocean, in what has been labelled the “Blue COP.” With states under pressure to step up their commitments to action on climate, discussions will be focusing on why there is not more action on oceans when we know what needs to be done. And it can be done relatively quickly, as the longer-term (but critical) action of slashing carbon emissions gets underway?

    Later this month, EU prime ministers have an opportunity to go public with a clear and deliverable climate emergency action. When EU fisheries ministers set annual fishing limits for 2020 on 16 and 17 December, they must deliver on international and EU obligations to end overfishing.

    • Rebecca Hubbard is the Programme Director at Our Fish.
  • Video: State of the Stocks

    Video: State of the Stocks

    Our European seas and coastal fishermen using low impact fishing gear are paying the unfair price for decades of overfishing and political prioritisation of short term financial interests of destructive fisheries and overfishing.

    Watch our brand new mini documentary from the Danish fishing cooperative Thorupstrand. These fishermen using Danish Seines and nets are supportive of fishing limits that support healthy stocks and oceans.

    Will European fisheries ministers finally listen to the small scale fishermen and the need for keeping our ocean healthy when setting this year’s fishing limits in the North-East Atlantic this December?

  • How EU decisions affect fish, the ocean and life on earth

    How EU decisions affect fish, the ocean and life on earth

    How EU decisions affect fish, the ocean and life on earth

    Published by Open Access Government, October 17th, 2019:

    Rebecca Hubbard, Programme Director of the Our Fish campaign, reveals precisely how EU decisions affect fish, the ocean and life on earth

    Europe’s seas are home to some of the world’s most productive fisheries, and the European Union (EU) is the world’s largest trader of seafood products. (1) What we do with fish matters; as well as providing food and jobs for the fishing industry – fish keep our marine ecosystems functioning. Fish and marine life are the engines of our global ocean, the ocean that supplies us with every second breath drives our climate and has absorbed 90% of the excess heat produced from accelerated climate change. You could say the ocean is the heart and lungs of the planet. So with fish populations coming under severe pressure from both climate change and overfishing, the question arises – by ending one problem, can the other be alleviated? And can we do it fast enough to make a difference?

    The EU has long acknowledged its overfishing problem and member governments have committed to putting an end to it. Yet fish populations continue to be fished far beyond what scientists advise – and at the last count, some 1.7 million tonnes of ‘unwanted’ fish were being discarded at sea dead or dying every year – wasted.

    This is clearly absurd. Back in 2013, hundreds of thousands of people around Europe thought so too and demanded an end to overfishing and discarding. Following pressure from civil society, industry and politicians, EU governments agreed to reform the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to end overfishing by 2015, or by 2020 at the latest.

    A great deal of backslapping followed as ministers congratulated themselves on a job well done. But with commitment, action is required; 2015 is long past – and with 2020 fast approaching, EU Member States continue overfishing, treating our seas as a resource to be mined, rather than an ecosystem that supports life on our planet and a collectively-owned public good for the benefit of all citizens, now and in the future.

    As a result, many EU fish populations are being fished beyond what scientists advise is sustainable. In April 2019, a report of the EU’s own scientific experts(2) found that 41% of assessed populations in the Northeast Atlantic were still subject to overfishing in 2017 and 37% of stocks were still outside safe biological limits. In the Mediterranean, around 90% of fish populations are overfished.

    At last December’s AGRIFISH Council in Brussels, an annual gathering where EU fishing quotas are horse-traded during closed-door, all-night sessions, fisheries ministers agreed to quotas a whopping 300,000 tonnes above scientific advice for the North-East Atlantic in 2019 – increasing overfishing by 10% on the previous year.

    Good, publicly-funded scientific advice is placed on ministers’ desks, but when it comes to the crunch, long-term social, financial and ecological thinking is cast aside in favour of short term profit or political deals. The situation often worsens the following year, when scientists advise even bigger cuts to quotas – because previous decisions have worsened the health of the fish populations – creating a negative feedback loop that spirals downwards.

    To make matters worse, discarding of unwanted fish at sea has not stopped; the massive waste of fish through bycatch continues and improvements in fishing selectivity and catch documentation anticipated by the reformed CFP has not eventuated. Many believe this is largely because there is virtually no policing of fishing vessels at sea and without monitoring and enforcement, the rules are simply being ignored. With stories of widespread illegal and unreported catches emerging, Our Fish has launched Fishyleaks.eu, to provide a secure and anonymous website for reporting infringements.

    Does it have to be this way? Of course not. Will it take a long time to change? No. During two EU Council meetings of two days each and one week of negotiations with Norway, the EU sets its annual fishing limits. Member States can end overfishing by 2020 (as law demands), by simply following scientific advice. And they can enforce the ban on discards by introducing Remote Electronic Monitoring on fishing vessels (CCTV in working areas) to verify that what they are catching and reporting, reflects the fish that are being brought ashore.

    Is overfishing the only threat to the ocean? Certainly not. But besides the rapidly worsening impacts of climate change, it is still considered the greatest. Can removing one help the other? A new paper from scientists at the University of British Columbia, released on 2nd September and commissioned by Our Fish, finds that one of the clearest pathways to building ocean resilience in the face of climate change is to end overfishing.

    The paper finds that overfishing severely weakens the health of the ocean. So when climate change hits, the ability of the ocean (and its wildlife and fish populations) to withstand that extra impact, is severely undermined. But scientists have found that by removing the pressure of overfishing, fish species have a drastically increased chance of survival. Combined with the fact that fish help sink carbon in the ocean and reducing extra boats will achieve a more profitable and sustainable carrying capacity, it means ending overfishing will also capture more carbon and reduce emissions.(3)

    It’s time to sink or swim. The EU and a number of Member States have begun to acknowledge the state of the climate crisis. They are debating a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and talking about new Green Deals which will prioritise action that pulls back the runaway climate change train and saves nature for our children.

    But if the EU is going to do this, it needs to put the ocean at the heart of any climate action plan – because the ocean is the heart and lungs of the planet. And we are going to need many tools and strategies, including those that can be practically delivered immediately. Not only does ending overfishing rebuild marine life and deliver on EU fisheries law, but it is also instrumental in bolstering ocean resilience in the face of dangerous climate change. Ending overfishing is emergency climate action and it’s time the EU slams on the brakes.

    References

    1 EUMOFA, 2016. The EU fish Market 2016 edition. European Market Observatory for Fisheries and Aquaculture Products. www.eumofa.eu

    2 Scientific, Technical and Economic Committee for Fisheries (STECF), 2019. Monitoring the performance of the Common Fisheries Policy.

    3 U. Rashid Sumaila and Travis C. Tai, 2019. Working Paper #2019-05, Ending overfishing can mitigate impacts of climate change. Fisheries Economics Research Unit, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries & School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, the University of British Columbia.

  • Missed our Webinar “Ending Overfishing Is Opportunity to Combat Climate Crisis “? Catch up with this video

    Missed our Webinar “Ending Overfishing Is Opportunity to Combat Climate Crisis “? Catch up with this video

    Missed our webinar Climate action and overfishing, with Dr Rashid Sumaila on September 2nd? Catch up here!

    Working Paper: Ending Overfishing Can Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change

    Press release: Ending Overfishing Is Opportunity to Combat Climate Crisis – Report

    Powerpoint from webinar: Ending overfishing can mitigate impacts of climate change

     

    Ending overfishing would not only secure vital fish populations for the future, but constitutes a significant climate emergency action, according to a report published today. According to Our Fish, the report’s findings offer EU governments a realistic opportunity to deliver immediate and effective action on dangerous climate change, as well as meeting their legal obligations to finally quit overfishing.

    The working paper, Ending Overfishing Can Mitigate Impacts of Climate Change, by Dr Rashid Sumaila and Dr Travis Tai of the University of British Columbia, finds that “overfishing and climate change are not mutually exclusive problems to be addressed separately,” as both are severely impacting ocean health, and putting marine ecosystems and the goods and services they provide to communities at risk. Ending overfishing would give the ocean respite from human pressure, making it more resilient to the effects of the climate crisis, while helping to restore critically valuable marine ecosystems, says the paper

  • Stop #overbevissing, geen greenwashing

    Stop #overbevissing, geen greenwashing

    In 2020 moeten de EU visserijministers ervoor zorgen dat alle visserij in de EU zeeën duurzaam zal zijn. Met nog 6 maanden tot de deadline, ligt de EU op schema? De Europese Commissie lijkt te denken van wel, maar wetenschappers zeggen iets anders. Wat is er aan de hand?

    Check onze video en doe mee met #StopOverbevissing → https://save.our.fish/petitie

  • Ikke mere grønvaskning tak – #EndOverfishing

    Ikke mere grønvaskning tak – #EndOverfishing

    EU Kommissionen påstår at næsten 99% af landingerne i Nordøstatlanten, herunder Nordsøen, Kattegat og Skagerrak, vil være fisken på bæredygtigt niveau i 2019.
    Det er forskerne dog ikke enige i og siger, at der er lang vej igen. Hvorfor?

    Tiden er inde til at holde inde med grønvaskningen. #EndOverfishing.
    Take Action

     

  • Video #EndOverfishing Don’t Greenwash It

    Video #EndOverfishing Don’t Greenwash It

    By 2020 EU Fisheries Ministers must ensure that all fishing in #EU waters becomes sustainable. With less than one year to go to the deadline, is the EU on track? The European Commission seems to think so, but scientists say otherwise.

    Take Action now.