News
November 25, 2009
No more Borg for Fisheries, Malta decides
Malta’s prime minister has nominated the country’s social policy minister for the next Commission, meaning there will be a new Fisheries Commissioner after Joe Borg. As a concession to Ireland before that country’s referendums on the Lisbon Treaty, each member nation was allowed one member in the Commission. Joe Borg, once the foreign minister who … Continued
November 25, 2009
EU experts squash consultants’ report
The STECF, an expert body under the EU Commission, has sharply rejected an official assessment of the social and economic impacts of a future management plan for pelagic fisheries in the Baltic Sea, as lacking in both method and transparency. The Commission has started preparations for a management plan for the pelagic stocks in the … Continued
November 24, 2009
Escaped carp threaten world’s biggest lakes
An Asian carp that escaped American fish farms into the Mississippi in the 1990s now threatens the ecosystems of the Great Lakes, the world’s biggest freshwater lake system. The bighead and silver carps, consuming up to 40 percent of their body weight daily in plankton – starving out other less aggressive species – can considerably … Continued
November 20, 2009
No agreement on Technical Measures Regulation
The EU Fisheries Ministers failed to reach any agreement on a new technical measures regulation at their November meeting, and a visibly subdued Swedish Minister Eskil Erlandsson, the present Council President, said “it is now for Spain to take over … this very pressing issue”. Spain, the Union’s dominating fishing power, will lead the Council’s … Continued
November 19, 2009
Questioned MSC label is sought for Baltic cod
The EU Council’s October decision to raise the 2010 TACs for the Baltic cod, has now been followed by a move by German fishermen to have their fisheries in both Baltic stocks MSC certified. The eastern and western stocks have both dramatically declined since the 1980s, but the much bigger Eastern stock has been showing … Continued
November 19, 2009
Nordic Ministers sink current CFP
In an article ahead of Friday’s EU Fisheries Council meeting, the Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers calls the current Union fisheries regime a “dismal failure”. Halldor Asgrimsson, a former Prime Minister of Iceland, added that Nordic management systems in that field could serve as a “source of inspiration” for the upcoming reform … Continued
November 18, 2009
Just one day in Brussels for Fisheries Ministers
Due to the Thursday extra EU summit to discuss candidates for new top official offices, the Agriculture and Fisheries Council meeting has been limited to just one day, Friday. According to the Swedish Presidency, however, all fisheries issues will remain on the agenda. That means that the ministers will decide on the Commission’s proposal for … Continued
November 18, 2009
Chickens, pigs and cows nibble dwindling fish stocks, while people starve, study says
Rather than aiming at consumers’ conscience about what they put on their dinner tables, finding alternative feed sources for chickens, pigs and cows may be a more fruitful path to choose when it comes to saving dwindling fish stocks, researchers behind a new global study say. Some facts, according to the researchers behind the University … Continued
November 17, 2009
Bluefin tuna decision meets mixed reactions
The EU Commission welcomes the ”decisive action” by ICCAT to reduce bluefin tuna TACs, while fuming environmentalists call it a “sell-out”. Meeting in Recife, Brazil, The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) decided to reduce the annual Atlantic blue-fin tuna fishing quota to about one-third of the current levels, thus rejecting calls … Continued
November 17, 2009
Renewed jellyfish threat
Scientists’ warnings of Japanese jellyfish growing big as sumo wrestlers as a consequence of overfishing, have become terrifying reality: a 200-kilo monster recently sunk a big trawler off Chiba on the central East coast. The trawler, the Diasan Shinsho-maru, capsized as its crew was trying to haul in a net containing dozens of huge Nomuras. … Continued