“We are going to face enormous competition outside Europe for the fish resource. And the first thing we must do is rebuild our own resource because they could produce much more if they were rebuilt.”

The quote comes from this lecture by Dr Daniel Pauly in the European Parliament, 13 September 2011 – “A Global Perspective On EU Fisheries Reform”.

The lecture starts at 6:15 in the video. The presentation slides are available here (pdf).

Quote from the lecture: “We are not producing fish, we are not like farmers. We are just gathering them. Nature has made them for us. So if you cannot make money gathering fish, that means the fish should be left alone. They should have a chance to rebuild themselves. Subsidies are actually decreasing the catches.

What it means in Europe is that subsidies must go. Because we are going to face enormous competition outside Europe for the fish resource. And the first thing we must do is rebuild our own resource because they could produce much more if they were rebuilt.

In the reform policy, there is no explicit rebuilding plan. It does not specify how fast you should rebuild what stock.

In the USA, they specify how fast all stock stocks should be rebuilt. There, the fisheries quota should be adjusted so that the stock can be rebuilt in ten years.
That’s what the EU does not have in its plans.”

Links:
Video on Greens/EFA website.
Embed the video.

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