Britain Urged To Protect Fish Species

December 7, 2004

Release from: Associated Press

London — Fishing should be banned in almost one-third of British waters to protect the marine environment and threatened fish species, a panel of experts said Tuesday.

Decades of intensive fishing have depleted fish stocks, but measures to protect marine life are inadequate so far, the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution concluded.

“We need to take positive steps to allow the environment to recover,” commission chairman Sir Tom Blundell said. “Marine reserves should be created to protect 30 per cent of the U.K.'s seas from fishing.

“Intervention on this scale is necessary to preserve important ecosystems and to break the present cycle of unrealistic quotas and diminishing fish populations,” Blundell said.

Prince Charles was quoted as telling a newspaper on Monday that urgent action is needed to stop the damaging practice of overfishing in international waters.

If left unchecked, overfishing will become a “major global catastrophe for the world's growing population,” the heir to the throne told The Daily Telegraph.

The commission's report – Turning the tide: Addressing the impact of fisheries on the marine environment – warns that fishing is a major threat to seas around the world. It says more than 40 per cent of commercial fish species in the northeast Atlantic and neighbouring seas are outside sustainable limits.