EC proposes ban on deep-sea bottom trawls and gillnets

Scofflaw

From Reuters:

BRUSSELS, July 19 (Reuters) - Ancient, little-known species of fish, living deep in Atlantic waters, could gain protection from EU proposals published on Thursday to phase out certain kinds of deep-water fishing.

The Commission, the European Union's executive arm, proposes phasing out licences for deep-sea fishing using methods known as bottom trawls and bottom-sea gillnets.

Conservationists and environmentalists welcomed the proposals, which cover the European waters and high seas of the Northeast Atlantic and outermost regions of Spain and Portugal.

The vessels that would be affected by the proposals are chiefly French, Spanish and Portuguese.

"They are a milestone because the EU has never tried to stop bottom fishing in its own waters before," said Stephan Lutter, international marine policy officer at WWF.

To become law, the proposal would have to be adopted by EU member states in a long legislative process, which judging from previous fishing debates could be heated.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/19/eu-fish-idUSL6E8IJID320120719

The devil's in the political process as usual - evil technocrats are proposing marine protection measures, the elected representatives will no doubt seek to water down or derail the proposals.

Lobbying (or advocacy if your prefer) for this seems largely to have been done by Pew Global.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Macha

Is this part of the CFP reform?

Scofflaw

Macha wrote: »

Is this part of the CFP reform?

Not as far as I can see:

Bottom-set gillnets are nets that are "planted" on the seabed and left static to entangle the catches. The vessels then return after some time to retrieve them and haul the catch. Their impact on the environment is felt in terms of the unwanted catches they take and on the cases where they get lost or abandoned, and continue to ghost-fish for very long periods of time. They are already under a general prohibition of use in depths of more than 600 m. The proposal tabled here basically consolidates the rules in their respect.

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/586&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

The state of the proposal, and the language, would seem to suggest that this is, from a legal perspective, a technical measure, which would make it available within the current CFP.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Markcheese

Don't think there's a whole lot of Irish boats netting anyway...some, but not many. Trawls are a different story though....