In a letter to Environment Ministers concerning the lagging implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, NGOs have highlighted 20 measures that can help to achieve the obligations the EU has committed to.
Seas at Risk, an umbrella organisation of environmental NGOs across Europe, have taken the lead in proposing the measures that are needed to implement the EU’s environmental obligations, and are supported by 35 organisations who have signed on.
The letter states: “Clean, healthy and abundant seas by 2020. This is what European countries committed to achieve when they adopted the Marine Strategy Framework Directive in 2008.
With little more than a year until the deadline, all countries of the European Union are failing on their legal obligation to ‘take all necessary measures to achieve Good Environmental Status of EU seas by 2020’ (Marine Directive, Article 1(1)). In August, the European Commission itself stated that we are unlikely to achieve Good Environmental Status of EU seas by 2020 unless Member States take more definitive action.”
These 20 measures would stop the degradation of our seas and prevent serious impacts to nature and society. The are using the hashtag #OurBlueLung to highlight the issue because our seas and ocean produce over half of the oxygen we breathe.