Environment: Fears that overfishing will destroy the Med

Environmental groups yesterday urged action to prevent a catastrophic collapse in Mediterranean fisheries stocks. They want a new fisheries body to adopt urgent measures to sustain fish populations and save what a traditional industry threatened with extinction.

Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) told a news conference in Athens that they had rallied another 39 non-governmental groups to push for tougher measures from the General Fisheries Council of the Mediterranean (GFCM) meeting in Rome on Monday.

"We want urgent decisions now, there is no time to waste," Nikos Charalambidis of Greenpeace said. "Fishing reserves in the Black Sea have collapsed and will never recover. Those fishing fleets are now fishing in the Mediterranean."

The GFCM, which for decades has made non-binding recommendations, will decide at the Rome meeting whether to adopt control mechanisms to enforce its decisions. All Mediterranean countries and the European Commission participate in the group.

"Their recommendations have not been bad but have been ineffective because it has been up to the various governments to enforce them," Charalambidis said. "GFCM must decide to form its own control mechanisms before it's too late."

Environmentalists said that chaotic fishing is threatening to deplete fish reserves and destroy the Mediterranean's traditional fishing communities. "According to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, 18 to 40 tonnes of fish caught are thrown back. This is about 40 percent of the catch," said WWF international Mediterranean fisheries coordinator Demetres Karavellas.

Countries faced with dwindling fish populations tend to extend their fishing territories and subsidise fishermen instead of banning destructive fishing methods and giving over-fished areas time to recover, he said. "From 1983 to 1990 the European Union has raised fishing subsidies from $80 to 500 million despite the fact that the European fishing fleet is 40 percent bigger than European reserves can sustain," Charalambides said. - Reuter