Last month, the European Union Fisheries Council met in Brussels to discuss the problem of overfishing and to set catch limits for the 2012 commercial fishing season. The EU’s new regulatory policy has caused protest from both sides of the issueconservationists are calling for tighter regulations as the health of European fisheries steadily diminishes while commercial fishermen lament shorter seasons, smaller allowable catches, and smaller profits. Cod stocks have already collapsed in the Irish Sea and off the west coast of Scotland, provoking demands that the EU adopt a fundamentally new strategy for marine resource management.
This is not the first time we have seen the EU in deep water on the overfishing debate. In a press conference July 2011, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki earnestly admitted that EU fisheries policy was not working, explaining that roughly 75% of EU commercial waters were being overfished and a third were in a worrying state. Assuming no reformations were made, Damanaki projected that only eight of the EU’s 136 viable fishing stocks would be sustainable by 2021.
Unfortunately, this latest set of regulations seems unpopular with environmentalists and fishermen. Conservationist group Oceania blasted the EU’s new plan, pointing out that catch limits for 2012 were set over 20% higher than those recommended by the European Commission in July.
“This type of short term approach will lead to the deterioration of not only fish populations, but also of the profitability of the sector and the viability of the fishing communities,” said Xavier Pastor, Oceania’s executive director for Europe.
Oceania also calculated that in 2009, EU fishing fleets received 3.3 billion in subsidies, equivalent to $50% of the total value of the catch. Despite more subsidies to soften the economic blow, the fishing industry is up at arms over the most recent regulations. Bertie Armstrong, CEO of the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation, believes that the new cuts in the length of fishing seasons will deal damage to the already struggling fishing industry.
This is a bitter blow for our fishing fleet, which is now going to struggle to maintain economic viability under the impact of these totally unwarranted cuts, said Armstrong. Our whole industry is now facing a very difficult future, he added.
While the EU continues to seek a solution to overfishing, US fish stocks have never been healthier. A report last January from one of our nation’s leading scientists in fisheries management indicates that US fish stocks are replenishing to unprecedented levels. This is big news when you consider that for the last three decades, fish populations have plunged to all-time lows in the United States while the heavily subsidized fishing industry has swelled, fueled by the proliferation of sophisticated new fish finding technology. University of South Florida’s Steve Murawski says our commercial fishing stocks have been overfished to some degree since at least 1900, which is roughly when data collection on commercial fisheries began. But new data from Murawski indicates US fisheries are no longer in the danger zone.
In 2007, the United States announced a formalized initiative to end overfishing which was codified into law under the amended Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, a bill which has been changed several times since its original 1967 version. The 2007 version of the bill (the most recent) was the first to legally define overfishing, outlining a bold new strategy for revitalizing fish populations by 2010. The bill defines overfishing as depleting fish populations faster than they can repopulate to healthy levels, distinct from being overfished, meaning that populations are simply low. Murawski’s data indicates that by this definition, overfishing is no longer a problem for US stocks. The consensus among American scientists seems to be that Murawski is right. US fishermen and scientists from many parts of the country believe the improvement is attributable to new fish management strategies, namely the implementation of individual fishing quotas (IFQs).
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