EU fisheries ministers open talks to protect deep-sea species
European Union fisheries ministers today opened talks aimed at keeping Atlantic and Mediterranean deep-sea fish species from commercial extinction.
Deep-sea fishing vessels are quickly undermining stocks in the Atlantic, and the European Commission wants cuts of 33% in catch quotas next year and to maintain that reduced quota in 2008 to make sure stocks and the specialised industry remain sustainable.
France, which has the biggest deep-sea fleet, wants smaller reductions and spread over more years. Poland, Spain and Lithuania are backing Paris.
In France alone, the livelihoods of some 3,000 fishermen are at stake if catches and the fleet are to be curtailed. Blue ling is the best known dinner treat of the deep seas in the Atlantic; much of the catch is sold frozen.
The ministers will also negotiate a plan to make fishing in the Mediterranean more sustainable. Stocks of such delicacies as bluefin tuna have declined for years, and talks on an EU proposal to turn the tide have failed to make visible progress in three years.
Catches in the Adriatic and around Sicily have declined by as much as two thirds over the past two decades and, overall, the future of some 100,000 European fishers in the Mediterranean looks increasingly bleak.
Even though talks on the recovery plans – including catch quotas and such measures as mesh size and limits on days at sea – have dragged on for three years, officials said they hoped for a breakthrough by the time the meeting ends late Tuesday.
When it comes to tuna however, EU officials said the most important meeting this week is in Dubrovnik, Croatia, where the 42 nations of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas are meeting to discuss plans to rescue the species from commercial extinction.
The WWF environmental organisation published a report over the summer saying that illegal fishing of tuna continued unabated despite the growing scarcity. It said catches of tuna are 80 percent less than a decade ago.
“The destruction of the bluefin stock has to be urgently curbed,” said WWF spokesman Sergi Tudela.
The EU ministers issued measures last month to protect such threatened species as cod in the Baltic sea, and will asses the state of Atlantic stocks next month.
