Europe’s new Fisheries Commissioner Maria Damanaki opened her first fishing quota talks by stating that tougher measures were required to bring species back from danger to more commercially viable levels.

“I want to be clear that the quota levels set must respect all the European Union’s commitments to sustainability,” she said in a statement. However, her strategy will be hampered by widespread illegal fishing, a lack of data on the state of many stocks and fierce bargaining by coastal communities.

The Commission has proposed the establishment of an EU market for Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs), which it thinks will reduce overcapacity, improve conservation and maximise the economic efficiency of the fishing fleet.

OCEAN2012 has sent a letter to the members of the Fisheries Committee to share its position on the proposal. OCEAN2012 believes the phasing out of the current quota allocation system, replaced with a system that grants access based on a set of environmental and social criteria, is better placed to achieve sustainable fisheries.

About 60 percent of European Union fish stocks are outside safe biological limits. However, fishing nations  catch around 34 percent more than scientists say is sustainable. Portugal and Spain have quotas that are still set 55 percent above the levels advised by fisheries scientists, pushing southern hake and anchovy outside safe biological limits, the Commission said in its report.

A target has been set by the EU Commission to get fisheries back to Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) by 2015. However, some fish stocks are already so low that even if fishing stopped today MSY could not be achieved in that timescale.

The Pew Environment Group said Damanki’s strategy fell short on protection for deep sea fisheries. “For deep-sea fisheries in the Northeast Atlantic, the scientific advice is that all species, including endangered species of deep-sea sharks, are outside safe biological limits,” said Uta Bellion of the Pew group.

Anchovy and sardine fishing is being regulated in Mediterranean with new catch limits and a ban on fishing over threatened Posidonia seagrass beds under the Management Plan for the Conservation of the seafood resources of the Mediterranean Sea.
In an effort to help boost recovery of the seafood resources and to guarantee sustainable activity, the ministerial order prohibits capture “with trawler nets, dredgers and purse seiner nets on the beds of Posidonia Oceanica and in coralligenous and maërl beds.”
According to the new regulations, Spanish vessels in the ports of the Balearics and Andalusia will have to limit captures of European anchovy (Engraulis encrasicholus) to 7,000 kg weekly, and those of European pilchard (Sardine pilchardus), to 5,000 kg daily.
In the rest of the ports of the Spanish Mediterranean coast, 15,000 kg of anchovy per week and 5,000 kg of sardine per day will be allowed.
Vessels with purse seiner gear will only be able to execute one landing per day, except on the Andalusian coast and the Balearics, where they are permitted a maximum of two daily landings.
Purse seiner fishing vessels in the fishing-ground of the Mediterranean will be banned from fishing between 1 October and 31 March of every year within certain coordinates and the 45-metre isobaths.
Order 143/2010 also specifies a fishing prohibition of surface longliners from 1 October to 30 November of every year, and with bottom trawlers to depths over 1,000 metres in all the outer waters of the Mediterranean coast.