The General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean Sea (GFCM) has agreed to fisheries management measures aimed at recovering fish stocks in the region.
According to Oceana, these stocks have remained unmanaged for decades and 91% of stocks are overfished.
The management plan agreed by the GFCM includes a minimum landing size for hake and shrimp, an authorised fishing vessel registry, and features monitoring measures for all Tunisian and EU vessels participating in the fisheries. It also requests that scientists provide advice by next year on reducing the impacts of the fisheries, including the closures of key nurseries and spawning areas.
Oceana Executive Director, Lasse Gustavsson, has welcomed this move: Mediterranean States have taken an important first step forward in the restoration of overfished stocks in the Strait of Sicily. A comprehensive multiannual plan will help end the overfishing of shrimp and hake, half of which are juvenile fish.
However, Oceana said that it regrets that the parties postponed a discussion on the proposal by the GFCM Scientific Advisory Committee to close three key nursery areas for hake and shrimp. The organisation says that these closures are urgently needed to protect juvenile fish and are sufficiently backed by science. The parties have committed to consider this proposal in the upcoming meeting in 2016.
Mr Gustavsson said that strong measures should be taken urgently: The basis of a management plan is set but the parties have failed in agreeing strong reductions of fishing pressures and closures to protect juvenile fish this year, which have been postponed to 2016. Governments now have one year to prove they are serious and will take all necessary action to ensure a future for Mediterranean fisheries.
Mercator Media Ltd 2015