EU fisheries ministers have reached an agreement on catch limits for 2013 for the main commercial species in the North Atlantic, but Oceana says they are above scientific recommendations.
Oceana describes the decisions adopted as contradictory and regrets another missed opportunity to end the overexploitation of European fishery resources.
“Now more than ever, decision makers have the tools they need to responsibly manage the stocks, but unfortunately it seems that they do not want to use them,” said Xavier Pastor, executive director at Oceana in Europe. “Although we are moving in the right direction in many cases greater effort is needed to end overfishing. By ignoring 48% of the scientific advice, the quotas can hardly ensure sustainability nor can they guarantee reaching the MSY objective.”
For first time in years the Council received scientific advice for most of the stocks managed through catch limits and the number of stocks without scientific advice declined from 61% last year to 15%. Oceana says that while the decisions showed an increase in the number of stocks that will be harvested at Maximum Sustainable Yield levels, a high percentage of stocks will be exploited against advice and thus against the precautionary approach.
The Council’s agreement can be viewed here.
