The European Parliament has approved new rules on fishing control

After rather long and complicated negotiations, with 438 votes in favour, 146 against and 40 abstentions, the European Parliament approved new fishing control measures, designed to electronically monitor and track catches and better manage marine resources.Specifically, according to the new rules, all boats will have to carry on board a tracking device, which allows national authorities to identify their location and will have to record and declare their catch in a digitalized way.Some 'artisanal' fishing vessels may be exempt from this obligation until 2030, but for all others belonging to the same category the deadline to adapt to the new requirements is set in four years.

Vessels less than 12 meters long will also have to account for their catch:the captain will have the obligation to fill in and present a declaration (albeit more simplified) on the day's fishing before disembarking, and for the first timethey will also have to do so for pleasure boats – those usually used for sport or recreational fishing, without commercial purposes –, required to declare catches through specific digital systems.

Larger vessels (18 meters and above), capable of bringing home a larger quantity of fish - the weight of which is therefore more difficult to control and estimate on board - will have to be equipped with remote electronic monitoring systems (including CCTV) within – and no later than – the next four years from the entry into force of the legislation.The margin of tolerance – the difference between the estimate of the fish caught and the weight at the port of landing – will in fact be set at 10% per species (with some exceptions for catches of small volumes and for some particular varieties):percentage that large boats, without more accurate control, could easily exceed.

But the rules do not only concern the fishing phase.Parliament has indeed explained that operators will have to keep the information coming from the entire supply chain, from the sea to the plate, because only the «full digital traceability of fish and its derivatives» can contribute «to strengthening food safety, ensuring fairer competition and fight illegal fishing, unreported and unregulated."

It is also because of the latter that, over the years, water has partly changed its physical-chemical composition and is no longer able to adapt to changes.To the point that even the biodiversity of the seabed is gradually weakening.A problem that is not only environmental, if we take into account the existence and health condition of the European sea alone, which extends for more than eleven million square kilometers, many things depend on:our quality of life, livelihoods, economies and vital ecosystem services – such as food, energy, clean air and climate mitigation.

However, the capitalist economic and production system which, in addition to introducing pollutants into the environment, continues to exploit in an unruly manner and excessive natural resources available, risks undermining a circuit that, in practice, keeps us alive.

The European Environment Agency - the EU body that monitors the environmental conditions of the territory - estimates that in the Mediterranean 96% of fish stocks are overexploited and fished mainly using trawl nets - to which Italy is particularly fond of it.A problem, if you take into account that its ecosystems host up to approximately 18% of marine biodiversity of the world and that only a very small part of this is caught in a sustainable way - both from the point of view of the fishing method and the quantity of fish caught.The EU says that, in the worst-case scenario, around 90% of all marine life could disappear by 2100 and those would be the first to succumb fish species linked to areas of intense fishing activity.

The new monitoring system, which will come into force once formally adopted by the Council, should, albeit slowly, aim precisely at safeguarding the latter.But, as underlined several times by environmental groups such as the WWF, the problem is "implementation and compliance with the law, not planning".

[by Gloria Ferrari]