The European Parliament’s Committee on Fisheries adopted rapporteur Marco Affronte’s report on the collection of data in fisheries on 19 April.
The European Commission’s original proposal included collecting data on the environmental impacts of fishing and aquaculture production, but Birdlife Europe says that the European Parliament limited the scope of data collection by excluding freshwater aquaculture.
The organisation is calling for the collection of data on all relevant environmental impacts. It gives the example that in freshwater aquaculture, nutrient runoff needs to be monitored in order to avoid pollution of rivers and lakes. Similarly, marine fisheries must record seabirds that are accidentally caught so that the problem can be assessed and tackled.
Ariel Brunner, senior head of policy at BirdLife Europe, said, “We are puzzled by the exclusion of freshwater aquaculture from data collection. The EU is planning massive subsidies to increase an activity that can have significant negative impacts ranging from water pollution to introduction of invasive alien species. It would be irresponsible to subsidise such activities without collecting the basic information on their impacts.”
The organisation is now urging all EU institutions to negotiate a final decision that does not exclude data collection of freshwater aquaculture.
