EU urged to do more to protect fish stocks

The European Union must do more to prevent overfishing and protect the marine habitat or Europe's waters will become barren and result in damaged expanses, according to lobbying groups that issued a plea for action on Monday.

The groups, which include Oceana in Europe and ClientEarth, said in their report titled "Back to the Source: Saving Europe's Biodiversity Starts in the Ocean" that the bloc urgently needs to enforce current fishing regulations and implement a 10-point action plan they have suggested.

The plan includes the building by 2030 of a network of protected ocean sanctuaries that cover at least 30 percent of the EU's waters and for the bloc to push for such areas globally.

The NGOs want an environmental impact assessment of the fishing sector, an end to fishing subsidies, and limits on underwater noise.

The groups published their paper in response to a European Parliament draft report about the bloc's biodiversity strategy.

The report is scathing about the situation, saying Brussels has "neither fully met the 2020 biodiversity strategy objectives nor the global Aichi biodiversity targets", goals adopted by the United Nations in 2010. The report is expected to be presented to the EU's environment committee on Thursday.

Action points

"The EU has failed to achieve good environmental status for EU seas and the EU biodiversity strategy must be implemented if we are to have a chance of saving it－this implementation needs to include the 10 action points we have in our report," Rebecca Hubbard, the program director at Our Fish, told The Guardian newspaper.

She said Our Fish particularly wants to see the end of overfishing and bottom trawling, in which heavy nets scrape along the ocean floor, stirring up dust and flattening features and habitat.

The groups' demands follow warnings from international scientists last week that the planet is facing a "ghastly future of mass extinctions, declining health and climate-disruption upheavals" because of overpopulation and a lack of biodiversity.

The Daily Express newspaper said the NGOs have sent their report to the EU's decision-makers, including the European Commission, EU member-state ministers, and lawmakers.

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, has pledged to ensure the bloc begins to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.

Meanwhile, the UK's fishing sector has reportedly been plunged into turmoil since the nation left the bloc.

The Financial Times reports the "sea of opportunity" promised by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his government has not materialized. Seafood exporters are facing lengthy delays, something George Eustice, the minister responsible for fisheries, insisted in Parliament last week was down to "teething problems".