The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Mexican Gulf may, if it hits Florida beaches, threaten a sport fishing industry worth almost 1 billion euros. Tar balls that have floated ashore there recently have been identified as not coming from the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon incident off the coast of Louisiana, but US government scientists … Continued
Unless fleets are slashed, the world may face fishless oceans in 40 years, UN experts say. In such a needful action, they add, 22 million jobs could disappear and 13 million fishing boats be scrapped. “It’s not as absurd as it sounds, as already 30 percent of the ocean fisheries have collapsed and are producing … Continued
As the EU Commission released its policy paper on the setting of next year’s catch quotas, Commissioner Maria Damanaki said she wanted to see “a tougher method” applied. TACs are set annually for most stocks and every two years for deep sea species. An increasing number of stocks are now dealt with under multi-year management … Continued
Although the greying stock of Swedish professional fishermen is in serious need of rejuvenation, the Board of Fisheries approves only a handful of new licenses each year, a newsletter from the authority reports. “It’s got nothing to do with the job market – primarily it’s a question of what the fishing resources can endure”, says … Continued
Many Member States around the Baltic have just started on the road to implementation of the two-year old EU directive, an NGO meeting in Lithuania was told. On Monday 10 May, NGOs around the Baltic Sea gathered to learn more about Marine Strategy Framework Directive and its implementation in the region. They also discussed the … Continued
The first informal talks among EU fisheries ministers on the upcoming CFP reform ended in the Spanish Presidency reporting “unanimous agreement” on a set of priorities, including the need to separate small-scale and industrialised fishing. Backlighted by the Commission’s 2009 Green Paper and the more than 380 responses to it, as well as declarations and … Continued
As a result of ICES clients now subscribing to the Maximum Sustainable Yield approach, ICES is currently developing a strategy for the transition of the current precautionary-based advice to an MSY framework. The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) is an independent organisation/network based in Copenhagen that provides the European Union and … Continued
The Scottish fishing sector says it is facing massive close-downs after fishermen have used up their allotted days-at-sea quotas much sooner than expected. As the EU Fisheries ministers – except Scotland’s Richard Lochhead – had an informal meeting in Vigo, Spain, representatives of the Scottish seafood producers met Lochhead in Edinburgh to express their worries … Continued
Comparing statistics going back to the 1880s, British researchers found that four times more fish were landed in UK ports 100 years ago than today. The study, published in the Nature Communications journal, also found that UK trawlers had to work 17 times as hard for the same catch as in the late 1880s, when … Continued
The forces of Nature have caused the price of fishmeal to skyrocket more than 85 percent in a year. A tonne of fishmeal had surged to 1,937 US dollars (€1,479) in late April. After the global financial crisis in 2008, prices went as low as $1,000 a tonne. The increase was due to a sharp … Continued