The North East Atlantic Fisheries Commission (NEAFC) has adopted stronger regulations for the management of deep-sea fisheries and the conservation of deep-sea species and habitats in the North East Atlantic.
This follows the NEAFC’s work over the past 10 years, which has seen the organisation close a number of areas on the high seas to bottom fishing to protect coral and sponge ecosystems. But, it says other important habitats remain vulnerable to the impact of bottom fishing, in particular bottom trawling.
In addition, few limits have been established for the catch or bycatch of many of the species caught in the deep-sea fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic.
“Most of the species found in the deep-sea are highly vulnerable to depletion and the catch of the majority of these species is not subject to any NEAFC quotas or limits” said Björn Stockhausen of Seas At Risk.
“NEAFC now needs to do a better job in setting strict limits on the catch of deep-sea species and manage the fisheries to prevent the bycatch of the most vulnerable species such as deep-sea sharks which are recognised as endangered,” he added.
The new regulation requires prior environmental impact assessments for all bottom fisheries in new fishing areas; protects a broader list of vulnerable deep-sea habitat types beyond coral and sponge habitats from the impact of bottom fishing; and requires the long-term sustainability of deep-sea fish stocks and non-target species and the rebuilding of depleted deep-sea fish stocks.
At the same time, the European Union is currently reviewing its domestic deep-sea fisheries regulation for EU waters and the high seas in the North East Atlantic. A proposal has been submitted for a new regulation that would phase out the use of bottom trawls and bottom gillnets for deep-sea fisheries.
“We are urging EU fisheries ministers to advance a successful reform of the European Union’s deep-sea fisheries regime in line with their United Nations’ commitments, and call particularly on Italy, which assumes the rotational EU Presidency in July, to secure a speedy conclusion of the negotiations,” said Matthew Gianni, co-founder of the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
The new NEAFC regulation is set to enter into force in September 2014.
