The decision of the European Union’s Council of Fisheries Ministers to set Total Allowable Catches (TACs) and quotas for deep-sea fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic in contravention of United Nations General Assembly resolutions drew sheer criticism from Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
As per UN General Assembly resolution the EU should implement a set of management measures for deep-sea fisheries ‘to ensure the long-term sustainability of deep sea fish stocks and non-target species, and the rebuilding of depleted stocks’ and ‘not to authorize bottom fishing activities until such measures have been adopted and implemented’.
The International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, the main scientific advisory body for Northeast Atlantic fisheries, has advised that there is insufficient scientific information to manage deep-sea fisheries to ensure the long-term sustainability of deep-sea fish stocks. No impact assessments have yet been conducted for the EU’s deep-sea bottom fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic.
Deep-sea bottom trawl fishing, conducted mainly by Spanish and French fleets in the Northeast Atlantic, is widely recognized by ICES and other scientific bodies to be the most serious threat to deep-sea ecosystems such as cold-water coral reefs found throughout the Northeast Atlantic.
The Council decision essentially allows EU fleets to continue to fish similar amounts of deep-sea species as in 2010, with the exception of deep-sea sharks. Moreover, the Council only agreed to set quotas for 24 deep-sea species, with no limits in place for the catch of some 20-40 additional species known or likely to be caught in the Northeast Atlantic deep-sea fisheries.
