Environmental group Greenpeace has welcomed the European Commission ‘s (EC) decision to lift the ‘yellow card’ sanction on the Philippines.
The decision came nearly a year since the EC gave an official warning to the Philippine government for its failure to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
With the yellow card, the country was given six months to improve its mechanisms to fight IUU fishing, which found to be a major cause of overexploitation of fishing grounds and depletion of marine resources.
“As we celebrate Earth Day today, we laud the Philippine government for their cooperation in amending and strengthening the outdated Fisheries Code of 1998, which now has more teeth to curb illegal fishing that has long plagued Philippine seas.
“However, while there has been compliance to improve regulations, with the aim of accessing the important European seafood market, Greenpeace believes that the effectiveness of the revisions would be the actual implementation and eventual elimination of commercial vessels that steal fish from municipal fishermen–the biggest stakeholders,” Vince Cinches, Greenpeace Oceans Campaigner, said .
Cinches also challenged the Philippine government to strictly enforce the amended law and uphold the rights of municipal fishermen whose livelihoods have been adversely affected by several years of rampant illegal and destructive fishing.
“Further revisions to the Fisheries Code are needed in order to address the shortcomings that affect those that directly depend on the marine resources for their day to day survival,” he added.
2012. Philstar