On 19 May, the FAO General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) closed its annual meeting, without having taken any decision to address the steepest ever decline in Mediterranean fish stocks, says Oceana.
Despite this outcome, Oceana acknowledges one significant achievement of the meeting. For the first time, GFCM adopted measures for the management and conservation of sharks and rays in the Mediterranean, the region of highest risk in the world for these fishes. Twenty-three Mediterranean countries endorsed a proposal from the EU that bans the unsustainable practice of shark finning, prohibits trawling in some sensitive near-shore habitats, and requires countries to collect and report data on catches of some threatened species.
