Saving Seafood

The European Commission sees the light

November 16, 2015 — On Tuesday November 10, the Director General for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Mr.  João Aguiar Machado announced that the European Commission had dropped its proposal to ban all kinds of drift nets throughout EU waters. Addressing the Fisheries Committee of the European Parliament, DG Aguiar Machado stated that the regulation of drift nets would rather be addressed through regionalisation and the framework proposal on technical measures due to be published in early 2016.

Small scale fishers across Europe had been dismayed by the former Commissioner Damanaki’s announcement in May 2014 that she was determined to “eradicate once and for all” fishing with drift nets in European waters, with a ban to be implemented on January 1 2015.

Damanaki’s decision was backed by an impact assessment that had reached the conclusion, that due to signs that the number of vessels partaking in driftnet fishing had seen a decrease, ‘the overall socio-economic impact of the total ban is therefore considered irrelevant’. The impact assessment by its own admission, was inherently flawed, noting it had “not been possible to collect accurate landings data from driftnet fisheries apart from Italy and UK, which made it almost impossible to identify the economic importance of the gear at the European level.”

Read the full story at Low Impact Fishers of Europe

 

Small, Fast-Growing Fish Like Sardines More Affected By Population Collapses

August 5, 2015 — NEW JERSEY –Ocean species that grow quickly and reproduce more frequently are more vulnerable to dramatic population falls than larger, slower-growing fish, according to a new study Wednesday. The researcher said the findings are counterintuitive, because the opposite dynamic holds true on land.

A scientist from Rutgers University in New Jersey found that faster-breeding fish like sardines, anchovies and flounder, actually experience dramatic population falls more often than larger fish like sharks or tuna.

“Rabbits are doing pretty well compared to rhinos,” Malin Pinsky, author of the research, said in a press release. “Mice thrive while lions, tigers and elephants are endangered.”

Pinsky studied population changes in 154 species of fish over 60 years, and was surprised to find that small fish with large populations were collapsing more often — not seriously enough to face extinction, but enough to possibly disrupt marine ecosystems. He suggested that the difference in population volatility could be explained by overfishing and climate change. The results of his research were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Read the full story at the International Business Times