If any of you guys emailed your MEP’s to urge them to vote for fisheries reform, all I can say is ‘Good work!’.
I picked up an email from the European parliament yesterday afternoon and this is the text:
A major reform of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) which aims to cut fishing to sustainable stock levels, end dumping at sea, and base long-term planning on sound scientific data, was approved by Parliament on Wednesday. Overfishing is widely seen as the worst failure of the current CFP, dating from 2002. The new one is to take effect in 2014.
European Commission figures suggest that 80% of Mediterranean stocks and 47% of Atlantic ones are overfished. The reform voted in plenary sets out clear and strong measures to tackle this problem.
“We have shown today that the European Parliament is anything but toothless. We have used our power as a co-legislator, for the first time in fisheries policy, to put a stop to overfishing. Fish stocks should recover by 2020, enabling us to take 15 million tonnes more fish, and create 37,000 new jobs”, said fisheries reform rapporteur Ulrike Rodust (S&D, DE). Her report was adopted by 502 votes to 137, with 27 abstentions.
Stop overfishing by ending discards…
Discards – fish thrown back, usually because they are of an unwanted species or size – account for almost a quarter of total EU catches. Most of the discarded species die. To end this wasteful practice, MEPs voted to oblige fishing vessels to land all catches in accordance with a schedule of specific dates for different fisheries, starting from 2014.
Landed catches of fish that are undersized, for example, would be restricted to uses other than human consumption. Member states must ensure that fishing vessels comply with the discard ban.
…and respect maximum sustainable yield
From 2015, EU member states will be prevented from setting quotas that are too high to be sustainable. Fishermen will have to respect the “maximum sustainable yield” (MSY), i.e. catch no more than a given stock can reproduce in a given year. In today’s vote, MEPs sought to ensure that stocks recover by 2020 to above MSY levels and sustain them thereafter. Ultimately this should mean more fish, better catches and hence more jobs in the fishing industry.
Long-term planning to replace yearly quota-haggling
The reform will rely on multi-annual fish stock management plans to ensure that fishing stays sustainable. Taking a longer term approach should improve market predictability, which in turn should help the industry to invest better and plan ahead. Multi-annual plans will be based on more reliable and accurate scientific data, which EU member states will be obliged to collect and make available.
Next steps
Parliament will now start negotiations with the Council and the Commission on the reform plans before their second reading. The Irish Presidency of the Council has repeatedly said it hopes to achieve an agreement the end of June.
Result! And by a big majority too.
The Naturephile 
This has been a long time coming, but better late than never, excellent result!
Absolutely, and as you said before the key part now is implementation and policing. But I think the key message here is that the political mindset appears to have moved towards sustainable exploitation of the oceans. On which note, there was an article in yesterdays Observer about David Milliband becoming the leader of a global organisation to reverse the damage being inflicted on the oceans called ‘Global Ocean Commission’. It will consist of senior political figures from around the world. Fingers crossed they are able to further raise public awareness and effect solutions.
That sounds very encouraging Finn. The fact that they’re taking it more seriously and it’s becoming more of a vote-winning subject is excellent. Let’s hope something positive does happen, and soon.
Reblogged this on Science on the Land and commented:
Success! Let’s hope it goes smoothly through the remaining steps into law, and that our European fisheries will show the benefits.
Nice one Sam, thanks for the reblog. I really hope that this is followed up with some robust, fair and sustainable ocean management, and as I said to Fran at Narf77 on the previous post, I hope it sets a precedent for other parts of the world to follow. There is some good stuff going on out there, but we need a lot more of it!
Yes we do. I think this really took off when Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall got involved.
Indeed. I like what HFW is doing to aim the spotlight of publicity into the darker corners of food production and the abuse that goes with it.
WOOT! 🙂
This all sounds positive and encouraging – congratulations.
Thanks Valerie, the hard work is just beginning I think and there will be a lot of horse trading to be done, but the majority in the plenary vote will hopefully provide a robust mandate to get things done.