EMERGENCY RECOVERY PLAN TO SAVE THE NORTH SEA!

Since the North Sea ecosystem faces a crisis, urgent measures are needed as this fundamental reform of disastrous European fisheries policy gets underway.

Greenpeace demands that North Sea governments, by the time of the IMM meeting at the latest, adopt an emergency recovery plan for all North Sea fisheries.

This plan includes:

1. An emergency programme to increase all threatened stocks such as cod, plaice and herring to levels that are safely above the minimum sustainable stock biomass -to be achieved within 5 years.

* Set precautionary catch levels. This may require moratoria on certain fish stocks.

* Ban discarding

* Reduce bycatch to levels approaching zero.

* Temporarily or permanently close critical areas or fisheries where there is a risk that fishing may have a major impact on the ecosystem.

2. A massive reduction of fishing capacity to bring capacity into equilibrium with the available resources

* Priority should be given to decommissioning the most destructive fishing methods and the capital intensive parts of the fishing fleet.

* Stop export of capacity to countries which do not apply the precautionary approach to their fisheries.

* Shift subsidies of the EU and national governments from maintaining fishing capacity to funding compensation for fishers.