“The Story of the Golden Fish”, a visually stunning street performance carried out during the 2011 European Maritime Day (EMD) on 20 May, captured the absurdity of the present European Union (EU) fisheries management and currently destructive fishing practices, and called for sustainable fisheries in a balanced ecosystem.
Starring Jacek Bozek, the founder of Klub Gaja and OCEAN2012 member, the event carried a powerful message of the need to stop overfishing, unless we want to invite the grim possibility of empty seas if fisheries continue to be mismanaged under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).
The street performance was enjoyed by a healthy crowd of the EMD conference participants. Jacek Bozek, as the Golden Fish, welcomed Lowri Evans, Director-General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, to the second day of the EMD celebrations, just in front of the Polish Baltic Philharmonic in Gdańsk.
Although the 2011 European Maritime Day failed to widely highlight the most pressing issues plaguing European fisheries today, the street performance highlighted overfishing as one of the key problems in the European fisheries sector, and the need to ensure a radical reform of the European fisheries management. The focus of the conference was centered on ‘people first’; however, without ‘environment first’, without the fish nature provides, there will be no fishermen and no coastal communities on which they depend.
Other stakeholder side events included a Greenpeace photo exhibit ‘Sentimental Fishing’ featuring coastal communities in Dziwnów, Poland; a screening of ‘The End of the Line’, a documentary film inspired by author Charles Clover on global impact of overfishing organized by Federacja Zielonych Gaja; and a WWF discussion panel on spatial governance.