NABU
  • Contacts
  • Press
  • Shop
  • DE | EN
  • About us
      • News
        UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration begins 5 June with a new peatland conservation guideline issued

        UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration begins 5 June more →

      • Ecosystem Restoration
        Restoring peatlands, sequestering carbon

        Restoring peatlands, sequestering carbon more →

      • Topics in depth
      • Regional Development
      • Biosphere Reserves
      • Civil Society
      • Environmental Education
      • Cooperations
      • Projects
      • Water for Life
      • Hutan Harapan
      • Biodiversity Project Ethiopia
      • Ethiopia's Wild Coffee Forests
  • Topics
      • Ethiopia
        Green diversification of Ethiopia’s garden coffee value chain

        Ethiopia’s garden coffee value chain more →

      • Indonesia
        Indonesia: Restoring forests for future needs

        Indonesia: Restoring forests for future needs more →

      • All Topics
      • Climate Change
      • Biodiversity
      • Species
      • Regional Development
      • Land Use
      • Traffic
      • Ecosystems
      • Protected Areas
      • Education
      • Civil Society
      • Cooperations
  • Focus Regions
      • Ethiopia
        Developing forest landscapes for livelihoods and climate adaptation in Southwest Ethiopia

        Developing forest landscapes in Southwest Ethiopia more →

      • Central Asia
         Wild, beautiful and endangered

        Wild, beautiful and endangered more →

      • Focus Regions
      • Europe
      • Africa
      • Asia
      • Caucasus
      • Projects worldwide
      • Europe: Peat Restore
      • Germany: Havel
      • Ethiopia: Coffee-novation
      • Ethiopia: Water for Life
      • Madagascar: Green coasts
      • Kyrgyzstan: Snow leopard
      • Indonesia: Hutan Harapan
  • EU Policy
      • Project
        How do we finance nature and climate protection?

        How do we finance nature and climate protection? more →

      • EU Policy
        The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy needs a drastic reform

        The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy needs a drastic reform more →

      • Topics
      • Agriculture
      • Ecosystems
      • Traffic
      • Species
      • Education
      • Climate change
      • Issues
      • Common Agricultural Policy
      • Electromobility in Europe
      • Common Fisheries Policy
      • Sustainable Finance
  • Get involved
      • Snow Leopards
        Support us with your donation or adoption

        Hoping is not enough more →

      • Africa
        Nature conservation and regional development really have an impact – NABU knows this and acts on it.

        Help Africa’s nature by supporting one of our funds more →

      • Topics
      • Civil Society
      • Private Sector Cooperations
      • Habitat protection
      • Donate
      • Snow Leopards
      • Africa
  • Presse
  1. Topics
  2. Ecosystems
  • Fishing for Litter
  • Havel
  • Hutan Harapan
  • Gas pipeline Nord Stream 2
  • LIFE Peat Restore
  • Protecting peatlands in the Ukraine
  • LIFE Multi Peat
  • Sustainable fisheries management
  • Living Rivers
  • Fishing without limits
  • Empty oceans
  • Climate and Forest Project Indonesia
Read

Fishing without Limits

Plundering the oceans prevents fish stock regeneration

Over the past centuries we have falsely believed that the resources of the oceans were limitless. Our increased demand for fish has required more industrial fishing fleets to comb the oceans searching for new fishing grounds.

Photo: Helge May

Photo: Helge May

Our appetite for the delicacies of the oceans along with the fish meal used to feed cattle and other livestock have created a situation in which more than 75 percent of the commercially targeted fish stocks worldwide are overfished or even outside safe biological limits.


The situation in the European fishing grounds is particularly alarming with 70 percent of the fish stocks assessed as overfished. Species such as Redfish or Atlantic Cod - in former times known as the „bread-and-butter fish“ of the Germans - are now in short supply. In the meantime, Germans consume about 16 kilograms fish per person per year.


Increasing fishing power prevents fish stocks from regeneration

In the last decade, the tonnage of fish harvested from the sea has risen sharply worldwide. In 1950, tonnage of fish harvested amounted to 17 million, by 2006 the amount had already increased to 82 million tons. Since the middle of the 1990s the amount caught has stagnated even though new techniques and equipment have improved: but stronger echo sounding systems, bigger vessels and bigger nets have not brought about bigger landings. We are exhausting fish stocks - trawlers are harvesting fewer fish. And the actual fish caught are smaller in size than in former years. In particular, top predatory fish such as tuna, Atlantic cod, sharks and rays have been decimated so severely that, in some areas, their stocks have been reduced up to 90 percent.

With fish stocks nearly depleted, the fishing industry is netting smaller and younger fish. In the North Sea up to 93 percent of the remaining Atlantic cod population ends up in the nets of trawlers before having a chance to spawn for the first time. Some scientists fear that commercially targeted fish stocks could collapse completely by the year 2048. And it is not only the European seas that are plundered. Meanwhile, European fishing fleets also operate off the coast of many African countries and, thus, moving the issue of overfishing to other areas rather than finding a solution.


By-catch threatens typical seabirds such as the Atlantic Puffin - Photo: Frank Derer

By-catch threatens typical seabirds such as the Atlantic Puffin - Photo: Frank Derer

The decline in fish stocks in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea has also been significant. Although the North Sea accounts for only 0.2 percent of the world‘s oceans, up to five percent of the catch is taken there. Approximately 3.5 million tons of fish are caught every year. In some regions of the North Sea trawlers drag their nets along the bottom up to 20 times a year in order to harvest bottom dwelling fish. This adversely affects highly sensitive benthic communities (marine flora and fauna on the ocean floor) – corals and sea anemones, starfish, mussels and snails. It will take a long time to recover - and in some instances the damage is irreparable.

Massive and destructive fishing practices have enhanced overfishing to the extent that nearly all edible fish species have been depleted. But fish are not the only victims of commercial fishing. Thousands of seabirds as well as marine mammals land as unintended bycatch in the nets of the fishermen. Gill nets are an absolute death-trap for ducks, divers, the Harbor Porpoise and other marine mammals.


Ineffective EU laws

The fishing industry in Germany is a traditional element of the German economy and culture along its coasts and rivers. Approximately 45,000 people are employed in the fishing sector. The German fishing policy is fully integrated in European fishing policies. Subsidies, close seasons, maximum catch and technical guidelines (mesh size, mitigation measures) are negotiated and agreed at the EU-level. However, there is wide agreement that the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) has failed. Not even the reform dating back to 2002 resulted in a recovery of the fish stocks. The CFP is currently debating a fundamental second reform and results are expected by 2012. NABU is taking an active role in the process.


More information

Fischkutter-Kontrolle  - Foto: Jan van de Vel/European Community
Empty oceans

Since its introduction in 1983, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) of the European Union (EU) has neither been successful in regulating fishing nor ending constant overfishing. more →

Make Peatlands wet again! - photo: Adobe Stock / Countrypixel
Ecosystems

An ecosystem is a complex of living organisms. NABU focuses on restoring ecosystems to their original state and important regulatory functions such as carbon sequestration. Ideally that's done by creating conditions in which the ecosystem can recover on its own. more →

Contact

NABU
Charitéstraße 3
10117 Berlin
Germany

phone +49 (0)30.28 49 84-0 |
fax +49 (0)30.28 49 84-20 00
NABU@NABU.de

Info & Service

Contacts
Press
Jobs
NABU-TV
Shop

Imprint
Data Protection Notice
Cookie-Settings
Transparency

Main Topics

Biodiversity
Climate Change
Regional Development
Ecosystems
Land Use
Traffic
Focus Regions

Donate for Nature

Bank für Sozialwirtschaft
BLZ 370 205 00
Konto-Nr. 805 1 805

IBAN: DE65 3702 0500 0008 0518 05
BIC-Code: BFSWDE33XXX
Donate online


  • Press
  • Newsletter
  • Information Center
  • Deutsche Version