Formed in June and coordinated by the Pew Environment Group, Ocean 2012 is dedicated to improving the Europe Union’s fisheries management system and ending overfishing.
The coalition’s launch came just weeks after the European Commission ushered in the green paper calling for extensive reform to the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP). Ocean2012’s founding members include Pew, the Coalition for Fair Fisheries Arrangements, the Fisheries Secretariat, NEF (new economics foundation) and Seas at Risk. Today, the growing coalition has 14 members.
SeafoodSource met up with Uta Bellion, Pew’s European marine program director, in Brussels, Belgium, to find out how Ocean2012 plans to shape the CFP debate.
Partos: As CFP reform is set to spark political brinkmanship in Europe, how can real change be achieved?
Bellion: Europe is such a major player in the ocean stakes, and it also has the funds to manage its stocks in a sustainable manner. If we really succeed in invoking diverse stakeholders — consumers, scientists, industry — and bring them into the discussion, then there will be a different level of accountability. It’s the elevation of fisheries into the public arena.
So there is a sense that raising public awareness is key to fundamental reform?
The fisheries ministers would not be able to go home without facing public outrage. In the past, national interests could play out arguably because of little accountability from the public. It is a challenge, but with reform imminent, now is the opportunity for change. The coalition wanted to come into the debate with something radical and out of the box. We’ve done it for sharks with the Shark Alliance. The image of sharks was quite bad, but we put information out into the public domain.
[In February, the EC approved its Plan of Action for the Conservation of Sharks, which aims to protect shark populations from overfishing.]
What role will Ocean2012 play in the debate?
We feel that proposing solutions are an important aspect of our role: putting a sensible comment back into the green paper. For example, we are currently collating examples of fishery schemes across the world that work with incentives. Our aim is to glean the best from strong initiatives that are successful today. We will also produce a series of reports for the public domain to raise awareness.
Further, Ocean2012 aims to serve as conduit for an open dialogue to stimulate communication and carry the debate forward. As such, we are organizing a series of seminars and conferences.
