Thursday, 16th April 2009
Fish discards must be stopped
Dear Sir,
The publication this week of the report - ‘Defining and Estimating Global Marine Fisheries By-catch’ - exposes some disturbing statistics. The fact that 40%, nearly half, of the world’s fishing catch is either wasted or illegal, unregulated and unmonitored and that each year, we take 38 million tonnes of marine life from the sea and either throw it back dead, or sell without regard to the status of the stock, demonstrates clearly the extent of the crisis in the fishing industry. Almost one million tonnes of fish is discarded each year in EU waters, most of it in the North Sea.
To dump that volume of healthy fish is an unforgivable and environmentally unsustainable policy that must be stopped. The best way for the EU to show it is serious about protecting fish stocks would be to ban discards immediately, insisting that everything caught must be landed, so that a million tonnes of fish is not thrown back into Europe’s seas. Not only would a discards ban give scientists a clearer view of the state of fish stocks, it would enable fisheries managers to see where juvenile and immature fish are being caught and temporarily close those fishing grounds to allow such stocks to mature.
In any case, at a time of economic crisis, when many families are struggling to buy food, it is morally unjustifiable to dump healthy fish dead into the sea.
Yours faithfully
Struan Stevenson MEP
