Setting sail for low-impact fisheries in the EU
Posted on December, 05 2023
How can we continue to feed millions of people while minimising fisheries’ negative environmental impacts, maximising societal benefits and improving policies and governance?
Low-impact fishing is a path, not a destination.The need to minimise fishing practices that are harmful to the marine environment is an integral part of the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and other EU marine policies.
Yet, 10 years after the last reform of the CFP, the necessary transition towards environmentally sustainable, economically viable and socially responsible EU fisheries is still far from achieved.
Despite significant efforts and improvements, fisheries management still often remains grounded in a productivist approach, failing to effectively address fishing’s preponderant role in the destruction of the marine environment. As water temperatures continue to rise, marine ecosystems are struggling to recover against the dual forces of climate change and overfishing.
The CFP emphasises the need to promote and favour low-impact fisheries, however it does not provide an objective definition, nor transparent and measurable criteria and indicators to measure and evaluate the impact of fishing. Without these, it can be difficult to know where to start and which next steps to prioritise.
To foster this discussion, the WWF European Policy Office and ANP|WWF have developed a methodology to assess the current impact of a given EU fishery, identify and address its shortcomings as best as possible, and evaluate and measure progress to make practices more sustainable. The aim is not to provide a definitive, strict evaluation, but to contribute to a better understanding of what low-impact fishing is, and the need to use ecological and other indicators to understand the impacts of fishing from a broader, ecosystem-based perspective.
The resulting Low-impact Fisheries Assessment Tool (LIF tool) has been tested in two Portuguese fisheries: the Algarve octopus fishery and barnacle harvesting in the Berlengas Nature Reserve. The results show how each fishery can (further) minimise the harmful impacts of its fishing activities.
Click here to read the publication. Please refer to the technical annex for further background, context, and methodological information.
Low-impact requires a constant re-evaluation of our practices and asks: how can we continue to feed millions of people while minimising fisheries’ negative environmental impacts, maximising societal benefits and improving policies and governance?
© WWF European Policy Office & ANP|WWF
Low-impact requires a constant re-evaluation of our practices and asks: how can we continue to feed millions of people while minimising fisheries’ negative environmental impacts, maximising societal benefits and improving policies and governance?
© WWF European Policy Office & ANP|WWF