Driftnets are fishing nets which drift with the tide or current \u2013 buoyed up by floats or attached to a boat \u2013 and can stretch for up to 14km long. They are known to cause the accidental death or injury of many marine species.<\/p>\n
Under the new EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement (FPA), 119 European vessels (mostly Spanish) will be allowed to fish in Moroccan waters \u2013 in exchange for EU compensation of 36 million euros per year. As WWF had requested, a small part of this money will fund the phasing out of Morocco\u2019s driftnet fleet \u2013 the largest of its kind in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n
A recent WWF study revealed that at least 177 fishing boats were illegally using driftnets up to 14km long in the Alboran Sea between Morocco and Spain \u2013 to target swordfish intended for the European market. Such activities were estimated to kill around 3,600 dolphins and 23,000 sharks per year in this part of the Mediterranean Sea alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis agreement is a major step forward in making fishing methods more sustainable in the Mediterranean,\u201d said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of Fisheries at WWF Mediterranean. \u201cWWF has been crying out for driftnets to be banned in the Mediterranean for years, so this concrete development is most welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Driftnets, though illegal, are still widely used across the Mediterranean. The EU banned driftnet fishing in 2002, and the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas followed suit in the Mediterranean in 2003 with pressure from WWF. The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean also banned driftnets in the Mediterranean at the start of 2005 \u2013 yet all these bans still remain to be fully enforced.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith most of the catch from the Moroccan drifnet fleet in the Mediterranean destined for European markets, the EU must step up and take responsibility by effectively monitoring the phase-out of driftnets in Morocco,\u201d added Tudela. \u201cWe further urge the EU to ensure no other driftnet-like fishing gear be tolerated \u2013 as has been threatened in a new fisheries regulation for the Mediterranean.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The King of Morocco has signed an agreement which will subsidise the phasing out of driftnets in Moroccan waters. WWF, the global conservation organisation, welcomes this major milestone in the banning of destructive fishing methods in the Mediterranean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-industry-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldfishing.net\/icefish-conference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}