Long-term management of threatened fish resources
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 28 June 1984. See Doc. 5237, report of the Committee on Agriculture.
- Thesaurus
The Assembly,
1. Concerned that many species in the North Atlantic, such as herring and mackerel, and many species in the Mediterranean are at present over-fished, and fearful that this may lead to a situation where fish stocks become seriously depleted for many years to come, leading to growing unemployment and economic hardship in the coastal regions concerned ;
2. Convinced that fishing, unlike other industries, is unsuited to unrestricted competition among independent operators, and believing that a regulating authority, national and/or multinational, is needed for each area to assign maximum catches, thereby allowing fish stocks to grow over time and provide stable supplies ;
3. Acknowledging, however, that social considerations may lead governments to permit catches higher than what is ideal from the biological and economic long-term production viewpoint,
4. Calls on the member states of the Council of Europe to limit catches of threatened species to levels which allow stocks to regenerate fully, and to give due weight to the economic aspects of fisheries management, thus providing fishermen with a more solid basis for their future livelihood ;
5. Calls upon the governments of member states to give greater consideration to the value of coastal wetlands and spawning areas for fishing and to ensure that much higher priority is given to the retention of this value ;
6. Recommends member states to use the opportunity provided by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to exercise responsible fisheries policies within their Exclusive Economic Zones, and to work in favour of similar arrangements as regards fishing waters and fish stocks which remain common or international under the new regime.
