EU Fisheries Reforms Aim for Sustainability

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,773876,00.html

The state of European fisheries is dismal, according to marine biologist Rainer Froese. For too many years now, a powerful fishing lobby has succeeded in its push for dangerously high catch limits, killing off stocks and ultimately driving up prices for consumers. As catches shrink, the European Union has subsidized struggling fishers in order to keep them in business, the researcher at the respected Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM-GEOMAR) at the University of Kiel in northern Germany, says.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, estimates that 75 percent of fish stocks in the region are overexploited, and that 30 to 40 percent of Europe's fishing fleet of 80,000 registered vessels will be financially unsustainable in the longer term. The EU has the world's third-largest fisheries sector after Peru and China.

But the the ecological and economical disaster need not continue, Froese argues. Other countries have successfully reversed the extirpation of their fisheries, and in 2010, the scientist teamed up with lawyers and economists to create a "blueprint" for future European fisheries management based on their models.

On Wednesday, the European Commission is expected to announce reforms to the €615 million ($859.4 million) in annual fisheries subsidies and plans aimed at achieving sustainability by 2015, a draft report obtained by the news agency Reuters showed.

[GliderGuider]

1. "Sustainability"???

Only if it's defined as, "Stabilizing most fish stocks at 10% of their original numbers, too bad about the others." You're 50 years too late to the party, boys.