Europe needs to decide on a ‘Frankenstein’ case, a problem we have entirely created for ourselves: electric ‘pulse’ fishing’. Electric fishing, which is forbidden in most fishing nations in the World, including China, was also banned in Europe until the European Commission and Council, at the end of 2006, made an illegitimate decision to authorize the use of electric current to catch fish and grant unjustified exemptions. This ruling went against scientific advice, only to satisfy the pressure exerted by a private interest group: the Dutch industrial beam trawl fleet.
“Europe needs to fix the problems it has created. The survival of the small- scale fishing sector requires that Europe definitively bans this destructive fishing technique.”