Small-scale fishermen and Greenpeace yesterday celebrated a great victory after European ministers voted on what campaigners are calling ‘bold and sweeping reform, dedicated to bringing Europe’s fish stocks back to sustainable levels after decades of overfishing’.
The victory – and it seems to be a big one – follows long months of campaigning and a very hard time for inshore fishermen.
As well as limiting fishing overall and boosting quotas for sustainable inshore fishing, the changes include a measure to reduce discards, the wasteful practice of throwing unwanted dead or dying fish overboard.
However, the campaign can’t be called off yet – the proposal still has to get through the European Parliament and the European Council next year.
Read more on this story here.
At last some good news. I don’t know about you, but I might just be beginning to feel a little more Christmassy…
Fantastic! Now let’s pray it goes through and common sense prevails. Then maybe we can do the same on our side of the planet