The House of Commons’ Environment Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee has published a report today on EU proposals for reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). The report should be urging  the UK government to improve the European Commission’s proposals for CFP reform, so that it provides urgently needed environmental protection for EU fisheries. However, rather than pushing for improvements to the Commission’s proposals, which are much needed, the EFRA Committee’s recommendations in some crucial areas would significantly weaken the Commission’s proposals.

The New Economics Foundation (nef) has just published a report whose findings back up everything that we’re working for during the current review of Europe’s disastrous Common Fisheries Policy (cfp). nef explain that the “value of restoring fish stocks is worth £2.7 billion (€3.2 bn) per year to all countries. It is worth £1.5 billion (€1.8 bn) per year to the EU27, or almost three times its annual fishing subsidies.”
 
ClientEarth have long argued that biological sustainability (Maximum Sustainable Yield) makes economic and social sense and here are the figures that prove it – taking more fish out of the sea than can biologically reproduce damns fishers to empty nets.  

Those who undermine sustainable fishing limits are not just creating an environmental calamity but are also talking economic nonsense. In a key year for the reform of the CFP we need to make sure that this message is heard loud and clear from coast to coast.
To find out more about ClientEarth's work on the cfp, click here

Worrying signals from Europe on maintaining sustainable fish stocks: in recent days the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs released this statement. It supports the Commission’s decision to abandon plans to limit fishing in areas where there is currently inadequate data about fish stocks. The plans would have seen an automatic cut in total allowable catches (or TACs) in such areas.  TACs are the the limits on the amount of fish that can be taken from any particular fish stock, and the cancelled plans would have applied across the board - offering vital protection for stocks about which too little is known to confidently fish sustainably.

photo: kasberbs

photo: alancleaver

This blog is actually a great big thank you to everyone who used our toolkit and wrote to their MPs asking for the Fish Fight Early Day Motion to be debated in Parliament.  As a result it became the second most signed EDM of the parliamentary session in the House of Commons and was debated on the 12th May - as Hugh said at the time: “This is a great result, and proof that people power really works.”

photo: guestygrrl

Jump straight to the MP letter-writing toolkit

Zac Goldsmith MP tables for a Fish Fight debate in the House of Commons - now we need your help.  Zac Goldsmith has made an official move to seek support in the UK parliament for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Fish Fight campaign, by tabling what’s known as an early day motion (EDM). EDMs are the method by which MPs, in a single sentence, call for a parliamentary debate on a topic  in the near future.   We need to use the EDM to draw Parliament’s attention to the madness of discards and to highlight cross-party support for a reform of the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) to stop the senseless waste of fish - and we need you to write to your MP to make that happen. This will take just seconds using our toolkit, here. Your email could make all the difference.

www.fishfight.net

Sunday is World Fisheries Day, but in 2010 is this a day for celebration or protest?

We are facing a food security crisis. Globally, fish provides 1.5 billion people with a fifth of their protein. According to the UN we need an extra 37 million tonnes per year to supply our growing population by 2030. Given that half of global fish stocks are fully fished and a quarter are overfished can we really fill the shortfall in this time?