1,000 signatures reached
To: Minister for Agriculture, Food & Marine, Charlie McConalogue
Minister McConalogue: stop hidden overfishing, vote against undermining accurate EU catch reporting
We urge Minister for Agriculture, Food & Marine, Charlie McConalogue, to vote against any EU Council proposal that would backtrack on current fisheries control regulations or expand the Margin of Tolerance in ways that would undermine the accuracy of catch reporting. Such a proposal would severely increase overfishing risk, undermine the EU's international credibility, and advantage large-scale industrial vessels.
Why is this important?
A healthy ocean means thriving wildlife, sustainable fisheries, and livelihoods for fishers, but a proposal to rewrite EU fisheries rules threatens to undermine all of this by legalising overfishing on a massive scale. It would allow dramatic underreporting of catches(1), but Minister McConalogue can prevent it from going ahead.
This relaxing of the rules has been tried before, in the Baltic Sea(2), where it contributed to the collapse of vital fish populations and “incentivised” hidden overfishing(1). The biggest benefits would go mostly to vast supertrawlers like the Margiris, which has been recorded fishing off the Irish coast in recent weeks(3). The cost would be felt by the rest of us. This is our last chance to stop this.
Join us in calling on Minister McConalogue to uphold Ireland’s obligation(4) to ensure the accuracy of catch reporting by blocking this dangerous proposal. It’s time to stand up for the ocean and everyone who depends on it.
Find out more about why this petition is so important by visiting the BirdWatch Ireland website: https://birdwatchireland.ie/join-us-in-calling-on-minister-mcconalogue-to-oppose-eu-council-proposals-that-would-undermine-accurate-catch-reporting-and-risk-further-overfishing/
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/16/loophole-quotas-overfishing-endangered-species-eu-papers
(2) https://ejfoundation.org/reports/a-case-study-of-the-margin-of-tolerance-in-the-baltic-sea
(3) https://www.independent.ie/news/environment/alarm-for-marine-life-and-local-fishing-crews-as-monster-super-trawler-fishes-in-irish-waters-for-a-third-day-42388536.html
(4) https://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=3E9E9FB0F6680A682CD5505D13ECBF56?text=&docid=253727&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=2468322