A film by French filmmaker Mathilde Jounot has been premiered at the annual Pêcheurs du Monde film festival currently taking place in Lorient. The crowd-funded documentary attracted enough backing to be able to delve into issues surrounding increasing regulation of the oceans, as well as the question of privatisation and the shadowy role in this played by NGOs.
A Parliamentary amendment linked to the Biodiversity Act that would ban deep water trawling will be voted on by French deputies later this week. France’s fishing industry is furious and Olivier le Nezet, chairman of the Brittany Fisheries Committee has said that such a ban would be a disaster.
Natura 2000 areas in German waters could be set to be closed to a variety of fishing activities as the German government seeks to implement restrictions over an area that comprises approximately 31% of the German EEZ, with implications for German and Danish fishermen, as well as those of other neighbouring nations.
Europêche, the leading trade body representing the fishing industry in Europe, has hit back at claims in an article published in the Guardian on Thursday 10th of March that states that a leaked European Commission plan concerning the Baltic Sea would open the gates to overfishing. The article claims that that cod in the Baltic may become extinct and that some fish stocks are in such a poor condition that scientists are even unable to carry out a proper evaluation.
The European Commission has presented proposals for new conservation measures in European waters. So far, these have been decided at EU level through a long adoption process that has frequently resulted in regulation that is cumbersome, complex and often contradictory.
Australian fishing company Austral Fisheries, producers of Glacier 51 toothfish and Skull Island prawns, chose today, Sustainable Seafood Day Australia 2016, to announce that they have become the world’s first carbon-neutral seafood business.
Members of Europêche today met DG MARE director general Joao Aguiar Machado to express their concerns over the current negotiations regarding possible restrictions on bottom trawling in the deep sea which could see a ban from 800m introduced, even for already regulated areas in international waters.
In an open letter to the Boston Globe, Shannon Eldredge and Niaz Dorry of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance have stated that the fishing fishing industry is becoming one ‘beset with corruption,’ and have pointed to the case of Carlos Rafael who was arrested recently after a sting by the tax authorities.
Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington has accused Dr. Geoff Shester, California campaign director for Oceana, of ignoring science to pursue a pre-arranged agenda.
Ireland’s fishing industry has erupted in anger after Minister for the Marine Simon Coveney signed a new Statutory Instrument designed to derail the recent High Court decision that had discredited the system of penalty points applied to fishing vessels, shunting the issue back into the the spotlight.