ABSTRACT
In 2002 the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAo) estimated that 70 per cent of global commercial fish stocks were overexploited or in danger of being depleted through fishing activities (FAO 2002). At the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) held in Johannesburg later that year, world leaders reached a consensus acknowledging the significant contribution of marine fisheries to economic and food security and to biodiversity in general. A number of commitments were entered into at the WSSD designed to achieve sustainable fisheries. These included maintaining or restoring fish stocks to levels that can produce maximum sustainable yields (MSYs) through the management of fishing capacity (International Union for the Conservation of Nature [IUCN] 2003). From a European Union (EU) perspective, these are long-held policy objectives. In addition to regulating the EU fish market and negotiating access arrangements with non-member states, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) contains regulatory frameworks concerned with the allocation of fishing quotas on the basis of MSYs and legislative instruments aimed at regulating the size and structure of member states’ fishing fleets. Despite applying these common laws since 1983, the EU Commission estimated that, in 2003–2004, of 43 fish stocks for which data is available, 81 per cent were over-fished and a further eight (18.6 per cent) were at their MSYs (COM 2006).
