A last-minute campaign in the February Fisheries Council failed to stop an extension of the controversial EU-Morocco agreement. Only Sweden, Denmark and the UK voted against. Under that agreement, the European Union has paid Morocco €144 million over the last four years to fish Moroccan waters, primarily by Spanish fleets. Much of those fisheries are … Continued
An extension of the European Union’s controversial fishing agreement with Morocco came one step closer as the member states’ EU ambassadors voted to send the proposal to a final vote among the fisheries ministers on Monday. A last-ditch effort to stop the proposal in Coreper, the ambassadors’ assembly, failed as some nations with many votes, … Continued
To protect a dwindling whitefish stock, the Swedish Board of Fisheries is planning to establish a non-fishing zone in the southern Bothnian Sea. The Board considers the lavaret or common whitefish (Coregonus lavaretus) as important for both professional fishermen and anglers. Historically, this fishery has been particularly widespread in the Bothnian Bay where catches have … Continued
With almost half of all seafood consumed in the US stemming from aquaculture, but very little farmed domestically, the US Government has proposed its first aquaculture policy. Citing growing interest in seafood’s health benefits, as well as increasing consumer concern about how fish is produced, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) published guidelines with … Continued
The EU Commission, running over its Fisheries Commissioner, is set to propose a one-year extension of the controversial fisheries agreement with Morocco, according to news reports. At focus for the controversy is Morocco’s occupation since 1975 of Western Sahara, off which coast much of that fishing takes place. An agreement between the EU and Morocco … Continued
While a new fact booklet from the industry – with forewords by both FAO and WWF – claims that aquaculture will “feed the world” by 2050, a giant global campaign against “Big aquaculture” has been launched which compares the harms of salmon farming to those of smoking. Issuing a report later this month headlined “Smoke … Continued
The WWF’s un-listing, under threat, of a popular Vietnamese farmed fish has provoked a heated debate in Sweden – the WWF claiming that in exchange it reached a strong agreement for that industry to clean up its business. Reporters from the Swedish public radio “Matens pris” (The Price of Food) program had visited Vietnamese Iridescent … Continued
After a nine-year ban, Russia has reopened exports of its exclusive sturgeon caviar to the EU. Fearing extinction of the species, Russia stopped all exports of black caviar – the sturgeon’s eggs – in 2002, although smuggling through Turkey and the Caucasus has been an emerging growth industry since then. The Russian Federal Fisheries Agency … Continued
A Canadian team of scientists that has studied catches in Arctic fisheries 1950-2006 has found them to be almost 75 times bigger than what had been reported to the FAO. The findings by a group of researchers at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver are particularly interesting in light of the receding ice in … Continued
In a “landmark decision” a fisheries committee under the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has decided to highlight small-scale fisheries with new international guidelines. In a comment on the decision by the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI), the International Collective in Support of Fishworkers (ICSF) said that it, and a line of other similar … Continued