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Fisheries ministers shut out to protect cod stocks
Posted by tracy on 17 December 2007.
Almost 200 Greenpeace volunteers shut down the EU fisheries quota meeting in Brussels
I remember when they closed the cod fisheries off the east coast of Canada. I was just finishing high school in a sleepy town in Nova Scotia. It was probably the first time an environmental disaster touched my life. You see, almost half my family are fishermen.
Even before the stocks were closed I remember my uncles talking about the dwindling fish, but rather than easing off they were hunting them down to cash in as the cost of the fish rose. I suppose it was unimaginable to them that these fish - which used to make the seas around the Grand Banks bubble - could ever disappear.
And now here I am, more than 10 years later on the other side of the Atlantic, and I have a foreboding sense of déjà vu. For the last seven years government ministers have ignored their own scientific advisors on cod fishing in the North Sea – and it’s the cod stocks and ultimately the fishing industry that will pay the penalty.
The scientists say that a cod stock in the North Sea of 150,000 tonnes is the bare minimum required, yet stocks are currently estimated at under 70,000 tonnes and describes them as ‘outside safe biological limits’. And, unless governments listen to their scientists, we risk losing the traditional ‘cod and chips.’
The European Fisheries Council has consistently chosen to ignore the dire warnings from experts – and 80 per cent of all Europe’s fish stocks are now in serious trouble. So, this morning we shut them out of the EU council building where they are due to agree next years quotas.
About 200 volunteers have blocked all entrances to the building just as European Fisheries Ministers were about to arrive. Around 50 of these volunteers built a 30 metre long wall blocking the main entrance.
The fisheries ministers and their bungling bureaucrats can’t be trusted to make the right decision for the fish stocks or the fishing industry, so we are keeping them out and are calling on environment ministers to step in and protect cod stocks in the North Sea. We are also calling for the creation of large scale marine reserves now, to allow cod and other stocks a chance to recover.
The cod stocks on the east coast of Canada have still not recovered and my uncles no longer argue with me about environmental issues.
You can help by writing to Environment Minister Hilary Benn and asking him to support the creation of Marine Reserves to protect the cod stocks and our ocean ecology.
Volunteers arrested
I've just heard from our campaigner Willie on the scene in Brussels, most people have now been arrested and the bureaucrats are being allowed to enter through side entrances. The two metre high wall is being removed brick by brick.
update from Willie in Brussels
This morning, in bitterly-cold Brussels, 200 Greenpeace activists shut down the EU Council building.
I have to be honest - i'm surprised we managed to pull it off. So many activists from so many countries, so many logistics to consider, yet we managed not only to close off every entrance, but also build a 30m long, 2.5m high wall blocking the main entrance.
We wanted the building shut so our incompetent Fisheries Ministers couldn't start their annual pre-Christmas round of horse-trading on fish quotas. Year on year they ignore the science and set quotas that are too high, driving species toward extinction, and trashing our oceans in the process.
80% of Europe's fish stocks are in trouble. Cod stocks in the North Sea are only a tenth of the size they were in the 1970s. This year scientific advice says we need to reduce fishing for cod still more, by some 50% .... yet inexplicably our Fisheries Minister Jonathan Shaw is arguing to catch more cod, not less.
It's clear that the Fisheries Minsters are only representing the short term view of a noisy fishing industry lobby. It's also clear that the environment is bottom of their agenda.
That's why it's high time for a radical overhaul of the way we manage our fishing industry and our oceans, including setting large areas off limits as no-take Marine Reserves. As a start - the scientific advice needs to be followed, and our Environment Ministers need to step in to protect our seas, and the fish, and the fishing communities, that depend on them.
Willie
Great action and a crazy reaction
It is bitterly cold yesterday morning as we marched toward the Council of the European Union building, but the timing was perfect. As we closed the place down the public and staff reaction was amazing. Great support from many people, with others calling us fascists, some of them wearing fur coats as they clambered over the wall to get inside. One woman, sporting big gold Chanel earrings and claiming to be a "Conflict Manager" screamed at us to let her in, completely losing the plot. Another guy attacked the fence, nearly strangling an activist who was chained to the fence in the process. He was livid. His fat belly wobbling as he shouted at us. And these are some of the people who are supposed to be serving Europe!
Many other staff supported our action, contradicting those few who were raging at us. It's good to get support from such enlightened people. One even gave us sunflowers as we were being dragged away by the police.
Mad times in Brussels.
Vive les poissons! Long live the fish!