Seas At Risk welcomed the International Fund for Animal Welfare as a new member into its network at its recent Annual General Meeting in Stockholm.
Marine Litter was at the forefront of discussions at the UN Ocean Conference that ran from the 5th to the 9th June at the UN headquarters in New York. Seas At Risk addressed solutions to the global threat, by co-hosting a side event and submitting a commitment on single use plastics.
In 1992, the Habitats Directive was adopted in order to protect remarkable or vulnerable natural habitats in Europe. Twenty-five years later, the European Commission is stepping up its support to the Directive’s implementation and putting resources on the table to make sure that it effectively delivers on its goals and establishes a coherent network of Natura 2000 protected areas on land and at sea. The EU Action Plan for Nature, People and the Economy, adopted in April 2017, aims to boost the contribution of EU’s nature laws towards reaching the EU's biodiversity targets for 2020.
Governments must implement tighter marine pollution controls or risk further degradation of the oceans, fish stocks and precious ecosystems, the UN is warning this week. Countries are being asked to support a ‘zero draft’ Call To Action at the 2017 UN Ocean Conference in New York that calls for an acceleration of “actions to prevent and significantly reduce marine pollution of all kinds”.
After almost two years of consultations and negotiations, the European Union has finally adopted new criteria defining what it means for our seas and ocean to be in Good Environmental Status. Seas At Risk and its members have been actively involved in this process and, with other European NGOs, have contributed to a more coherent set of criteria, increasing the chances of having a similar level of protection across European seas.
The overfishing of many species in EU waters continues, putting the commitments of the EU’s reformed Common Fisheries Policy in jeopardy unless this practice is ended. Yet when the EU Council meets to set annual quota limits, the powerful commercial fishing industry lobbies successfully for catch limits set far higher than the scientific advice. The power of this short-termist lobbying threatens the sustainability of many fish stocks, and the long-term viability of fishing livelihoods.
In 2016, the European Parliament and the Council adopted a new deep-sea regulation, bringing outdated EU legislation in line with international agreements and scientific developments. To ensure that the new objectives are being achieved as foreseen, Seas At Risk and allied NGOs have written to Commissioner Vella, calling for an effective implementation of the deep sea regulation, to protect deep-sea ecosystems from the harmful impacts of deep-sea fishing.
Seven European environmental NGOs are challenging the European Council, Parliament and Commission to practice what they preach and implement greener public procurement in their own buildings by phasing out single use plastics.
Ocean acidification could cause an annual damage to the European shellfish production of €0.9 billion by 2100, according to a recent study.
In its first meeting in Madrid on 14th February, the working group on finfish of the Aquaculture Advisory Council elected its chair and vice-chair (Javier Ojeda (APROMAR) and Phil Brook (CiWF) respectively) and established four sub-working groups to discuss fish feed as well as animal health law, animal welfare, and Blue Growth/ a level playing field.
The European Parliament has agreed to support a proposal from its own Environment Committee to include shipping in the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme (ETS).
Member states have put in place over 200 marine monitoring programmes across the EU to measure the quality of the marine environment and to evaluate the effectiveness of the policy measures that they are taking to improve it. However, an evaluation by the European Commission shows that those data collection efforts fail to cover some key problems, such as marine litter and noise pollution.
This week, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted on a set of amendments to waste legislation that is being revised to bring about a circular economy in Europe. Overall the amendments strengthened the initial Commission proposals.
The European Commission’s newly released Roadmap for the EU Strategy on Plastics in a Circular Economy fails to get to the root of the problem of plastics, according to the #BreakFreeFromPlastic Movement.
In this letter CAN Europe, Seas At Risk, Transport & Environment, Carbon Market Watch and the Aviation Environment Federation urge the European Commission to ensure the aviation and maritime sectors reduce emissions in line with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement.
The Clean Shipping Coalition (CSC), a group of NGOs with observer status at the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO), have heavily criticised comments by the head of the IMO warning the EU against taking action to address increasing GHG emissions from ships.
In a welcome development the Environment Committee of the European Parliament agreed to support the inclusion of shipping in a revised EU greenhouse gas emissions trading scheme (ETS). Under the proposal shipping would be included in the ETS from 2023 if the International Maritime Organisation fails to establish a global measure by the deadline they agreed earlier this year.
Seas At Risk welcomes the adoption by the European Parliament of the deep sea regulation, which includes a ban on bottom trawling below 800 metres in EU waters and the obligation to close areas to bottom trawling below 400 metres where vulnerable marine ecosystems are present or likely to occur.
Following a three year long process the Advisory Council on Aquaculture is finally established, and can start its work on shaping European aquaculture. Seas At Risk aims to encourage the development of an environmentally responsible aquaculture sector, minimising its environmental impact.
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