November 7, angling representatives from the Baltic countries met in Visby, Sweden. The meeting agreed on the joint statement: “The Baltic Sea in focus”. Every year, millions of people in the countries around the Baltic Sea fish for recreational purposes. Among large groups of people, sportfishing promote physical activity and contact with nature. Recreational angling … Continued
According to a report published in the current edition of Science, there is a risk of collapse of the world’s seafood populations by 2048 if current trends in destruction and overfishing continue. Scientific data going back to the 1960s and historical records of over thousand years reveal that marine biodiversity has declined dramatically, with 29% … Continued
The Council decided on the 24th October on the levels of TACs (Total Allowable Catch), the level of agreed fishing in the Baltic for 2007. The decision is a 10% reduction of the TAC for the eastern Cod stock (from 45 339 in 2006 to 40 805 tonnes in 2007) and a 5% reduction of … Continued
The Baltic Sea Regional Advisory Council (RAC) is planning a conference on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Copenhagen in March 2007. The focus of the conference is to identify the actions needed to minimize IUU in the Baltic Sea. The conference aims to adress the relationship between catching capacity and the catching opportunities … Continued
The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) released a report on October 20 on the status and perspectives of some of the most important Northeast Atlantic fish stocks. The 22 international scientists of the Advisory Committee on Fishery Management (ACFM) analysed the status of commercial fish stocks in the Northeast Atlantic. The … Continued
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), of which the Fisheries Secretariat is a member, accused the European Commission of greenwashing a set of proposals designed to undermine the growing support for a high seas moratorium on bottom trawling, and noted that it did not seem to reflect the will of all EU Member States. This … Continued
NGO’s from a wide range of Member States were represented at the workshop “Implementing the European Fisheries Fund – Opportunities at Member State level”. There has been a lot of positive response from the workshop held in Brussels 5 October. Apart from the organisers FISH, WWF, and BirdLife International the following NGO’s participated in the … Continued
WWF, FISH, and BirdLife International will host a workshop on the implementation of the EFF and the opportunities for NGO’s to influence the fund at the Member State Level. Background The recently adopted European Fisheries Fund (EFF) provides a major opportunity to promote sustainable fisheries over the next seven years. The EFF’s 3.8 Billion Euro … Continued
In June, the European Commission proposed to decouple the de minimis aid in the fisheries sector from that in the agricultural sector and to increase it tenfold. Under the new regulation, up to € 30.000 of state aid would not need to be notified to the European Commission if given to an enterprise over a … Continued
On 24 July the European Commission published its proposal for a Council Regulation to establish a multi-annual plan for the Baltic Sea cod stocks and their fisheries. Despite the adoption and implementation of a management plan under the auspicious of the International Baltic Sea Fishery Commission (IBSFC) in 2003, the two cod stocks in the … Continued