Greenpeace slams EU fishing 'failure'
the threat of extinction, says Greenpeace.
The environmental pressure group claims that the EU has ignored key scientific advice from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) to ban fishing for cod in the North Sea for the fourth year running.
But after the latest round of talks in Brussels in December, ministers instead announced a 15 per cent reduction in the amount of cod allowed to be caught. Greenpeace claims that that the only way to save threatened cod stocks is to grant zero quotas.
"If fishing for cod is allowed to continue, then cod will be wiped out and the UK cod fishing industry will be destroyed,"said Greenpeace oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles.
"This repeated failure to act decisively is slowly but surely draining the life out of the North Sea."
Falling fish stocks have led to numerous other calls for a more effective fishing policy. In October, the influential International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) released a report calling for a complete overhaul of deep-sea fisheries in the northeast Atlantic, which accounts for 60 per cent of the EU's production.
The scientists called for drastic measures to be taken until a full assessment on the situation is completed.
Greenpeace has also previously called for 40 per cent of the North Sea to be protected as a marine reserve, permanently closed to fishing and other extractive uses, and also wants supermarkets to remove the most over fished and destructively caught fish species from their shelves.
Such activism has led to growing environmental awareness, and consumer power has led to supermarkets and food processors to become more environmentally friendly. Some have even begun to put environmental statements on their products.
For example, Delhaize in Belgium has built its marketing around appealing to the consumers who want environmentally friendly products. Greenpeace has even published a league table of British supermarkets and their fish polices.
Meanwhile cod stocks in the North Sea, Irish Sea and west of Scotland remain well below minimum recommended levels.
"If the EU was serious about protecting oceans, then they'd be listening to the scientists and not caving in to the fishing industry," said Knowles. "The only way to allow the North Sea to recover is to ban cod fishing and to close large areas of the North Sea to fishing and other destructive activities."
According to Eurostat, the EU's 25 members produced about 7.6 million tonnes of fishery products in 2002. Denmark (1.47 million tonnes) was the largest producer in 2002, followed by Spain (1.15m tonnes ), France (0.95m tonnes) and the United Kingdom (0.87m tonnes). The four members accounted for 60 per cent of the total EU production.
