Muscat casts proposal into overfished waters

While the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) has decided to call for quotas on swordfish in the Mediterranean as from 2017, the Labour Party has pledged that no such quota would be introduced in 2017.

Responding to questions posed by The Malta Independent, European Commission spokesperson Enrico Brivio said that, “The 2017 swordfish quota for the EU has been fixed at 7,410.48 tonnes in February 2017 at the ICCAT Working Group, where the allocation key was discussed with Contracting Parties fishing for this stock. Individual country quotas have not yet been agreed at EU level.”

Following the agreement in the ICCAT Working Group in February 2017 on the quota allocation for swordfish between contracting parties, the Commission began to discuss with Member States the internal allocation of quotas for each Member State within the EU. After these discussions conclude, it is expected that the Commission will make a formal proposal for the establishment of individual country quotas for 2017, which would then need to be adopted by the European Council.

Individual states would then decide how to divide their quotas among their fishing fleets.

ICCAT had decided that the total allowable catch (TAC) in the Mediterranean for swordfish for 2017 will be fixed at 10,500 t. Of this allocated amount, the EU gained the largest quota (7,410.48 tonnes).

The Labour party, in the meantime, has pledged that no quotas for 2017 would be introduced, thus indicating that they will fendoff the decision for the introduction of quotas by a year.

The PL manifesto reads that they will ensure swordfish quotas will not be introduced for this year, while they will continue discussing with fishing cooperatives as to how best to divide the quota in an equal and just way.

JD Farrugia, Director of Fish4Tomorrow (an NGO which campaigns to create a culture of sustainable seafood consumption) said that as an organisation they always base their arguments on scientific data. “We believe in the importance of such data and on policy being centred around such data. Swordfish is now victim of one of the worst cases of overfishing in the EU. Species on the IUCN red list are to some extent endangered. Swordfish is on this list, but is not in one of the worst categories due to its management elsewhere. It specifically states however, that swordfish fishing in the Mediterranean has been subject to severe mismanagement. Under the new common fisheries policy in the EU overfishing is illegal.”

He urged that the European Commission should enforce the ICCAT recommendations as soon as possible, and said that Malta should also follow these recommendations.

“For us to block measurements that aim to target overfishing means we would essentially go against the Common Fisheries policies and we would contribute to overfishing, which is illegal.

“We believe in the livelihood of fishermen, and in particular smallscale fishermen. It has been known that they usually get the short-end of the stick when to comes to quotas, and it is important that such quotas are distributed in a way that does not impact them negatively.

“The remedy for the overfishing of swordfish is important for the ecosystem and the livelihood of fishermen as well.”