A coalition of non-governmental organizations (NGO) is calling for an urgent ban on destructive bottom trawling in EU marine protected areas, after the failure of member states to defend seas.
The ban is part of a 10-point action plan to “raise the bar” to achieve biodiversity targets, which they say will not be met by current promises, such as last year’s high-profile pledge by world leaders at the UN summit on biodiversity in New York to reverse nature loss by 2030.
A raft of EU laws to safeguard marine life — including a duty on EU member states to achieve “good environmental status” in seas by last year, to achieve healthy ecosystems and to introduce sustainable fisheries management — have not been enforced, said the coalition, which includes Oceana in Europe, Greenpeace and ClientEarth.
Photo: Bloomberg
They said this failure, combined with existing pressures on Europe’s seas, including climate change, risks triggering irreversible changes to the ecological conditions under which humanity has evolved and thrived.
The 10-point call to action, which the coalition is to present to EU leaders, lawmakers and member states, follows the commitment of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and many EU heads of state or government to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
The call was published in response to a European Parliament draft report on the EU’s biodiversity strategy for 2030.
That draft report, which is to be presented to the environment committee on Thursday, expresses strong regret that the EU has “neither fully met the 2020 biodiversity strategy objectives nor the global Aichi biodiversity targets.”
While the NGOs welcomed the draft report, they said it does not go far enough to ensure enforcement of current EU laws or to set action plans to reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
“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,” said Rebecca Hubbard, program director of Our Fish, which aims to end overfishing.
The EU has also failed to end overfishing and to protect marine habitats from bottom trawling, she said.
“What we really need to do is go from strategies and goals and action and outcomes. National pledges, goals and agreements are important for setting a direction but if we are going to save the planet we need action,” she added.
The 10-point action plan calls for a network of fully and highly protected ocean sanctuaries covering at least 30 percent of the oceans by 2030 and a drastic improvement in fisheries protections.
It urges the EU to commit resources to dramatically ramp up, implement and enforce existing legislation to safeguard marine life.
The coalition calls on the EU to carry out environmental impact assessments of fishing activities, to set fishing limits with “precautionary buffers” for climate change and mandatory remote monitoring systems for all fishing fleets.
It calls for measures to mitigate bycatch and for protections of the deep sea, such as closing sensitive areas to hydrocarbon exploration, and for an end to harmful fishing subsidies and controls on underwater noise.
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