Is it about politics, economics and opportunists? Or is it just a lack of public awareness?

Part one of a three-part article on The Common Fisheries Policy

Anthony Debono

A quick Google search for the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP, started in 1983) shows that it is considered to be a complete failure and that there is a great need for change. Some British parliamentarians have even suggested that the UK should opt out of the CFP and set up their own sovereign fishing zone.^[1] But what are the main problems with the current CFP? Is their any way to fix this mess that Europe’s seas are in?

Last year Greenhouse joined Ocean2012, an international coalition of organisations that have teamed up to promote a successful CFP reform, which is set for 2012. We posted an article^[2] on this blog several months ago, announcing the beginnings of our Fish4Tomorrow campaign, alongside other local NGOs (Nature Trust Malta, Sharklab (Malta), Din l-Art Ħelwa and Get Up Stand Up); this campaign is well underway and you will definitely hear more about it closer to summer.

Ocean2012 identify three main areas where the CFP has failed us:^[3]

· Overcapacity: It is estimated that some fleet segments in the EU are two to three times the size required to catch the available fishing quotas - we can fish more fish than there are fish. Newer boats with better and better technology are exhausting the stocks we have.

· Catch limits: Overcapacity creates political pressure to set higher and higher fishing quotas to keep all the boats working. In the last years, the catch limits agreed were on average 46 percent higher than scientific advice. In 2007, the quota for one population of Scottish haddock was set at eight times the recommended level.

· Harmful subsidies: The EU continues to provide subsidies to modernise fleets rather than focussing on mitigating overcapacity or investing in technologies that could support more sustainable fisheries. Furthermore, exemption from fuel tax, the cost of national administration, fisheries research and control measures could also be considered a subsidy to the fishing sector. “In several member states, it has been estimated that the cost of fishing to the public budgets exceeds the total value of the catches.” This means we are paying for our fish twice, through subsidies and at the counter.

These are three very direct problems which need to be fixed by the next reform, in 2012, however it’s easy to predict that there will be tremendous political pressure to limit change: cuts to catch limits/quotas and to industry subsidies are not exactly welcome by the multi-billion Euro fishing industry and the economies that they support. A clear example of the lack of political will is the result of the ICCAT meeting in Paris last November, where the quota for Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna was discussed. The world quota for Mediterranean and Eastern Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna, in 2010, was 13,500 tonnes. WWF were supporting Commissioner Damanaki’s call for a 50% slash to the world quota for 2011, however all we go was a drop to 12,900 tonnes.^{[4, 5]}

Fishing quotas are a hot issue locally, in the EU and on a global platform. Unfortunately, scientific recommendations for sustaining healthy fish stocks, which we could harvest for centuries to come, are being drowned out by the industry; an industry that keeps on insisting that more and more and more is what we need. It is a sad fact that even though we have technology, know-how and incredible information on fish stocks, we can’t even manage our fish stocks as successfully as our ancestors, who had none of this.

Our members and followers of this blog might ask the most obvious – what does Greenhouse have to do with all this? Greenhouse is a student organisation, based at the University of Malta. What do we have to do with fish stocks in the Mediterranean and rest of the world? Why should we interfere in the industry, even locally?

One of our main objectives as an organisation is to raise awareness locally on environmental issues and this is one of those issues in which awareness is paramount. Why? So what if the man in the street or the student on campus is aware of the issue of over-fishing? Well, the most significant cause of overfishing is in fact a lack of consumer awareness. It’s all about supply and demand. Fishermen catch fish to sell to the consumer. Most consumers, locally at least, do not make an informed choice when deciding what fish to eat – a survey carried out by the Fish4Tomorrow team found the following results: ^[7]

70% of respondents do not take sustainability into account when deciding on what fish to eat.

48 % eat Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (a species whose stock is known to be threatened).

81% said that if they knew a fish was endangered/threatened they would not eat it.

96% said that they would choose their fish differently if they were more informed.

A list of fish-species, which are quite popular in Malta, has been drawn up by the Fish4Tomorrow team and these were sorted into categories, based on various criteria, as to whether the fish stocks on these species are sustainable, not-sustainable or somewhere in-between. This information will soon be developed into a handy booklet (a little one that can fit into a wallet or pocket) for everybody to carry around when they go fish shopping or out to eat. This is being done in the hope that the man in the street will start to consider fish sustainability and encourage a change in the everyday habits and attitude we take towards the food which we eat.

On Friday, I will be representing Greenhouse and the Fish4Tomorrow Campaign at "Fished Out?" a conference organised by Din L-Art Ħelwa on the issue of the local fisheries industry. I will be introducing the campaign and the philosophy behind it. Other speakers at the conference include Dr Joe Borg (ex-Fisheries Commissioner, EU), Dr Alan Deidun, Dr John Refalo (Representative, Azzopardi Fisheries), Ms Caroline Muscat (Journalist), Prof Victor Axiak (Marine Biologist) and Dr Robert Vassallo Agius (Aquaculture Scientist). There should be some interesting and lively discussions.

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Ref:

1. http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/01/britain_and_eu
2. http://greenhouse-malta.blogspot.com/2010/11/4-environmental-ngos-launch.html
3. http://www.ocean2012.eu/channel/index/id/1436#
4. http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/france/101129/atlantic-bluefin-tuna-iccat
5. http://www.seafoodsource.com/newsarticledetail.aspx?id=8030
6. http://na.oceana.org/sites/default/files/o/fileadmin/oceana/uploads/europe/downloads/Fact_sheet_DMO_ENG.pdf (citing the European Commission)
7. Fish4Tomorrow Campaign, Market Analysis Report (2010).

End of the Line & Fish4Tomorrow

On Wednesday we will be screening "The End of the Line" at University (KSU Common Room) as part of Environment Fair from 13:00 and 15:00. The screening is free, so come and watch this interesting, inspiring and intense documentary on the state of the world's fisheries.

We will also be introducing the Fish4Tomorrow Campaign, a project we are working on with other local NGOs (Nature Trust, Sharklab, Din L-Art Helwa and Get up Stand up) and volunteers. The campaign is an attempt at building public awareness on sustainable awareness and an attempt at nurturing a culture of sustainable consumption in this country of ours!

Come to find out more about what YOU can do to help solve this global problem!

4 Environmental NGOs launch the 'Fish4Tomorrow' Campaign

Over the past few months a number of local NGOs have come together to create the Fish4Tomorrow campaign. The main aim of this campaign is to raise awareness on sustainable fishing within the local context. It also plans to provide guidelines to fish consumers helping them determine which Maltese restaurants serve sustainably caught fish. This idea is similar to the international Fish2Fork campaign (3). Also, Coalitions such as Ocean 2012 (2) which includes high profile members such as Greenpeace, Birdlife International, WWF as well as local NGOs like Nature Trust, Greenhouse and Sharklab (Malta) are on the forefront of raising awareness by campaigning for entire reforms such as the 2012 CFP Reform (Common Fisheries Policy Reform) which aims for healthy oceans and putting an end to overfishing amongst other issues. All this is done in the hope of ensuring that our oceans are preserved for us and our future generations.

Despite its large size, the ocean is not inexhaustible or exempt from the effects of human activity. Over the past decade or so the ocean has suffered irreparable damage and one of the major components is the issue of overfishing. Due to factors such as Globalisation, high levels of demand for certain species of fish have come about. Such is this demand, that governing bodies like the EU have pumped large amounts of money into companies providing them with highly sophisticated equipment and fishing vessels. This in turn has left fish with not enough time to reproduce and therefore giving the species very little chance of survival. The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus Thynnus) is possibly one of the most high profile cases of overfishing the world is currently facing. In fact ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna) have assessed that there has been a strong decline in its spawning stock biomass since 1993.

Catch limits of Bluefin Tuna are currently higher than scientific advice. In 2010 this was averaged to be at 34% higher. In attempt to counteract this, a quota is set by ICCAT which determines the amount of Tuna that is allowed to be caught per year. In 2008, this was set at 28,500 tonnes and has since been reduced to 13,500 tonnes for 2010. This, scientists believe, is still not low enough to give the Tuna a fighting chance of survival. Currenty, ICCAT is facing a lot of criticism from European countries like Malta, Italy and Spain for suggesting a significant drop in the quota down to 6,000 tonnes for 2011 and has had to reconsider this decision since.


Malta is one of the countries which is on the forefront of this issue since it plays one of the most important roles in the ranching of the Tuna which comes into the Mediterranean to breed. In 2006, the MCFS estimated the Bluefin tuna production in Malta to be at 3,000 tonnes, worth around €46,000,000 (1). One of the main reasons why Tuna stocks have been depleting so rapidly is because it is so far impossible to farm the fish, it being a migratory animal. This means the tuna is caught and ranched in large amounts, fattened for 6 months and finally exported, mainly to Japan.




Greenhouse
Nature Trust (Malta)
Shark Lab (Malta)
Get Up, Stand Up


1) http://www.fao.org/fishery/countrysector/naso_malta/en
2) http://www.ocean2012.eu/OCEAN2012
3) http://www.fish2fork.com/




Media Features: Di-ve Media

Biodiversity concern on the rise in the European Parliament

Lately, the European Parliament passed a Motion for a Resolution which wasn’t given enough emphasis and perhaps rightly because it is rife with rhetoric. Nonetheless, this motion which centered around biodiversity, had some points worth mentioning and it would be good if we reproduce some of the things agreed by the MEPs on this motion namely:

1. The European Parliament (EP) slammed Japan for its prevention of protecting the blue fin tuna at a high-level meeting it hosted to discuss the Convention on Biological Diversity.
2. The EP was of the view that decisions to be taken at the next COP (the high-level meeting between heads of state to discuss the way forward with regards to climate change) must reflect the findings of the TEEB (a study which is giving monetary equivalence to ecosystem services, species, habitats etc.) and that the costs of biodiversity loss and the value of biodiversity need to be reflected in national accounts;
3. By 2020, subsidies harmful to biodiversity are eliminated, there is zero net deforestation, pressure on marine ecosystems through overfishing is halted, the introduction and establishment of invasive species are halted, at least 20% of land, fresh water and sea areas are protected, 15%of degraded ecosystems are restored;
4. Business engagement should include not only voluntary commitments but also obligations;
5. Member States should develop innovative systems for payment of ecosystem services and mobilizing private financing;
6. IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS SUSTAINABILITY OF THE PRODUCTS BEING TRADED IS A KEY ELEMENT AND THEREFORE THERE IS THE NEED TO INCLUDE PRODUCTION METHODS AND RESPECT FOR BIODIVERSITY IN ANY FUTURE WTO AGREEMENT.

ALL MALTESE MEPs VOTED IN FAVOR OF THIS MOTION FOR RESOLUTION.


The majority of MEPs voted in favor and thus was adopted by the Parliament.