As a response to Commissioner Joe Borg’s call for fundamental reform of the EU fisheries policy, an important NGO coalition has formed in Brussels to fight overfishing and “enhance human well-being”.
OCEAN2012, coordinated by the Pew Environment Group, was founded by the Fisheries Secretariat, the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, nef (new economics foundation), the Pew Environment Group and Seas At Risk.
“Continuous overfishing has resulted in less productive fisheries with a loss of jobs and livelihoods. Fewer and smaller fish are being caught with greater effort required to find them. The simple fact is that without fish there can be no fishing”, said Uta Bellion, director of the Pew Environment Group’s European Marine Programme and OCEAN2012 Co-ordinator.
“Intensive fishing in European waters has led to dramatic declines in fish populations, for example 93 percent of North Sea cod are caught before they can even spawn”, she added.
A new Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) for the European Union will be in force in 2012, and the EU Commission earlier this spring published a Green Paper on CFP reform, a more or less official “starting-shot” for debate over it. The public consultation process will last until December 31 this year, and the OCEAN2012 is expected to play an important role in that context.
As the coalition was launched in Brussels on June 8, World Oceans Day, OCEAN2012 published a discussion paper “proposing a fundamentally new, principle-centred approach to fisheries management in Community waters and for the EU fleet globally”.
The current CFP of 2002 was heavily criticized two years ago by the EU Court of Auditors for having “failed to achieve its central objective of the sustainable exploitation of living aquatic resources”.