Lawyers at nonprofit ClientEarth have begun legal action over the fishing limits that were agreed between the E.U. and the United Kingdom for this year, calling them “unsustainable,” and insisting they allow shared stocks to be heavily overfished.
In a press release, ClientEarth stated that “during their second round of post-Brexit negotiations, the parties gave fishers permission to make catches of fish stocks that have ‘zero-catch’ advice from scientists to try to bring them back from extinction. They set catch limits for many other stocks far higher than scientists recommended.”
ClientEarth lawyers filed an internal review request asking the European Council to review its decision, the group said. If the council refuses to amend it, lawyers will ask the Court of Justice of the E.U. to rule, ClientEarth confirmed.
“We are challenging the fishing limits for the stocks shared between the E.U. and U.K. as they ignore the science and allow major overfishing – in breach of the law. This agreement is not only undermining the fragile health of our marine ecosystems, it is also eroding the capacity of the ocean to absorb carbon and mitigate climate change,” ClientEarth Fisheries Lawyer Arthur Meeus said.
The E.U. and United Kingdom share around 70 fish stocks, and in Europe, 40 percent of stocks in the Northeast Atlantic are still in bad shape, which is “in breach of the E.U.’s missed legal deadline to end overfishing,” ClientEarth said.
“Both the E.U. and the U.K. seem to have given up the vital and politically advisable objective of ending overfishing – this puts at risk the future of fishing activities, especially small-scale fisheries, and the survival of coastal communities,” Meeus said. “We hope this challenge will push both sides to put an end to short-sighted commercial interests over the medium- to long-term survival of fish and fishers. We're borrowing from tomorrow’s fishers when we need to be setting them up for the future.”
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