END OVERFISHING
12.12.2021
Over the next two days EU ministers will be ‘negotiating’ next year’s EU fishing limits in Brussels behind closed doors. Year after year targets have been set above the level advised by scientists. Instead the ministers follow the advice of industrial fishing lobbyists.
Today our ‘Fish Heads’ made a last minute plea to EU ministers to stop overfishing and end the needless slaughter. They stood in pools of blood, dead fish and entrails on Boulevard de Charlemagne in Brussels.
The Ocean Rebellion ‘Fish Heads’ represent the evil face of fishing and policy making with vested interests. From the front, they appear slick, smooth and business like. When they turn around you see the nature of their masks, ‘Fish Heads’ with the body brutally torn away. They leak blood on the ground, they crush fish in their hands and under foot. They are the real nature of industrial fishing and the politicians who ignore the science and allow overfishing to continue year after year. They’re only interested in the money made from waging a war on fish, they commit ecocide through greed. They will take anything they want from the Ocean while greenwashing their dirty business and even dirtier policy making.
The dead fish represent what is taken out of the sea above the natural capacity of the Ocean to recover, and the estimated 400 million tonnes of marine life that has been killed incidentally in the last 65 years – and thrown dead overboard, unwanted marine life like Dolphins, Sharks and Turtles. Such waste of life is the outcome of years of reckless policy-making.
Since the 1950s Europe (and the World) has declared War on Fish. We are now overfishing the Ocean at such a rate that some seas are near empty, like the Mediterranean sea, the most overfished sea in the world, a sea being discussed today in Brussels. This Industrial Scale Fishing is placing small fisher communities at the edge of survival, destroying marine life and precious coastal areas, wrecking Marine Protected Areas, and breaking the delicate balance of the marine ecosystem.
The EU must ACT NOW to stop the Industrial Fishing Overfishing Frenzy before there’s No More Fish in the Sea.
Sophie Miller of Ocean Rebellion says:
“We demand that the EU tells the truth about destructive fishing methods and immediately puts an end to overfishing and the continual greenwash served up by Industrial Fishing lobbyists.”
Andrew Darnton adds:
“The EU must tell the truth about the depletion of the Oceans. Many fish populations are close to extinction, even the terminology of calling them fish stocks and describing them as ‘not yet fully fished’ implies an industrial perspective on something that we should be looking to protect as if our lives depended on it – because they do.”
Suzanne Stallard says:
“Once a species goes extinct it is lost forever, we should not be encouraging fishing methods that allow this to happen, we should be precautionary and fish less to avoid the collapse of fish. But if we continue to fish on an industrial scale, ignoring scientific advice, we will simply end up with a sea empty of fish.”
Rob Higgs says:
“We have eaten almost all of the wild protein on the land, we are now on track to do the same to the oceans. This means we will leave them empty and depleted of the fish that once swam freely. We must end overfishing, bottom trawling and industrial fishing now to give fish populations a chance to recover. Because of the carbon stored by marine organisms, marine biodiversity breakdown and the climate emergency are more or less the same thing. We can’t solve one without the other, and killing off the oceans will end any realistic chance of saving the climate and our societies.”
Ocean Rebellion demands the EU ministers ignore the interests of Industrial Fishing and listen to the science. The EU must place the marine ecosystem at the heart of its fishing policy by ending overfishing NOW. The EU must ban all Industrial Fishing in EU waters, and all Industrial Fishing by the EU fleet in extra-territorial waters or the waters of other states. Any former subsidies to Industrial fishers must be used to encourage low-impact fishing, by transitional grants to industrial fishing workers and subsidising the artisanal (or traditional small boat) fishing industry.
AS THE SEA DIES WE DIE
ACT NOW
Take part in our supermarket ‘unsustainable fishing’ certification scheme:
oceanrebellion.earth/news/supermarket-sticker-sweep
Sign this European petition to stop Bottom Trawling in Marine Protected Areas:
act.wemove.eu/campaigns/bottom-trawling
And this UK petition by the makers of Seaspiracy:
change.org/p/george-eustice-mp
JOIN OCEAN REBELLION
Photos, from top to bottom 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6: @ronjabossen