A British chartered accountant has been appointed new Director-General for fisheries under the EU Commission. As part of the Commission’s “mobility policy”, Fokion Fotiadis, a Greek national as his Commissioner Maria Damanaki, is replaced by Lowri Evans at the top of the Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (DG MARE), the Commission announced. According to … Continued
Welcoming the EU Commission’s ”clear commitment” to bring in the MSY approach by 2015, a statement from nine important NGOs points out that Maxim Sustainable Yield is not “the ultimate target”. The statement, signers including FISH, WWF and the OCEAN2012 coalition, was commenting on the Commission Communication two weeks earlier on principles for setting quotas … Continued
Contrary to what the European Parliament’s legal experts have found, the EU Ambassador to Morocco contends there is “no problem” with the legalities in the EU-Morocco agreement on fisheries in occupied Western Sahara. Western Sahara, originally a Spanish colony, has been occupied by Morocco since 1975. The UN Security Council adopted a peace plan in … Continued
The Danish Maersk Company, the world’s largest container-shipping firm, has included in its environment policy to not carry red-listed seafood species. Species threatened by overfishing that Maersk is now refusing to transport include sharks, orange roughy (Hoplostethus atlanticus) and Chilean sea bass (Patagonian toothfish). The move was recently praised by the Green Party and Greenpeace … Continued
A strategic Government report on future Swedish fisheries urges “radical change”, including better distribution of fishing rights between the fishing sector, fishing tourism and leisure fishing, giving priority to what has “the greatest value to society”. The 122-page report “Fiske 2020” (Fisheries in 2020) by the Swedish Board of Fisheries says it wants to point … Continued
A continued rather remarkable comeback for the once troubled Eastern cod stock, and another slight improvement for its Western cousins, stood out as positive highlights as the ICES Advice for the 2011 Baltic Sea TACs were made public on May 28. Moving over to MSY For the Eastern cod stock, one of the largest in … Continued
”Long-term management based on science will produce results – as opposed to the quota haggling of before”, was WWF-Sweden’s reaction to the improved situation for the Baltic cod, highlighted in today’s ICES advice for next year’s TACs in the Baltic Sea. “The recovery for the Baltic eastern cod stock is running unexpectedly well, and we … Continued
Thanks to a 70-year old trawling ban, cod fishing in the sound between Sweden and Denmark could now be counted as 100 times more productive than in neighbouring Kattegat, a new Swedish study shows. With an annual outtake of some 2,500 tonnes in Öresund, cod catches in the ten times larger Kattegat has dwindled to … Continued
Fish worth almost 19 billion euros is landed illegally each year, and efforts to clamp down on it are futile, a new study shows. The study, published in May in the Science magazine, contends that annually up to 26 million tonnes are landed illegally, worth an estimated $23 billions. “Illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing … Continued
Concerned about one of the world’s most threatened seal populations, the EU Commission has sent a formal notice to the Finnish government calling for better protection of the waning Lake Saimaa seals. The Saimaa seal is a fresh water subspecies of the Ringed Seal, its occurrence restricted to the mythical Lake Saimaa in Eastern Finland, … Continued