European Parliament backs ban on deep-sea fishing in northeast Atlantic

The European Parliament on Tuesday said that it supported a ban on fishing below a depth of 800 meters in the North-East Atlantic.

A parliament statement said this ban will apply to bottom trawling, which often wrecks sea bed habitats, and also restrict deep-sea fishing to the area where it took place between 2009 and 2011. This will help protect the fragile vulnerable marine ecosystems of the deep sea bed.

Members of European Parliament also inserted stronger transparency safeguards, by including obligations to provide public information on European Union (EU) vessels targeting deep-sea species and to report all catches, the statement said.

Technological progress in the 1980s and 1990s has enabled new forms of fishing at previously unexplored depths, from several hundred to several thousand meters below the surface. Very slow-growing and late-reproducing fish stocks are highly sensitive to overfishing, an official statement said, adding that vulnerable marine habitats are also particularly sensitive to some fishing methods.

In view of the threats to deep-sea stocks, and recognizing the fragility of deep-sea ecosystems, the statement said various initiatives to promote more responsible deep-sea exploitation have been taken, both globally and at regional level. Endit