Feeding frenzy
NGOs are concerned about the Commission’s plans for aquaculture.
Fisheries has been in the spotlight a great deal in recent years, but there has been little public scrutiny of the European Union’s aquaculture sector.
However, there are some crucial developments taking place, aimed at boosting growth of the sector. Non-governmental organisations are concerned about the consequences in terms of pollution and habitat destruction, escaping fish and their impact upon the marine ecosystem.
While Asian aquaculture has seen impressive growth figures, European aquaculture production has stagnated in recent decades – it provides only 10% of European seafood consumption. However, the European Commission seems to be convinced that the sector has huge growth potential and will help to close the gap between dwindling wild catches and the ever growing demand for seafood.
Efforts to boost the sector are harnessed by the reformed Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF). The EU’s Blue Growth agenda for economic growth and employment, recently endorsed by the Council of Ministers, singled out the aquaculture sector as one of its five priorities.
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The EMFF has not yet been adopted but member states are already dividing up the cake. Countries are developing their multi-annual strategic aquaculture plans, which they have to submit by the end of 2013 in order to apply for 2014-20 EMFF funding. To support this planning, the Commission issued ‘strategic guidelines for the sustainable development of EU aquaculture’ earlier this year.
However, rather than consolidating a vision and setting out principles of sustainability, the guidelines merely set out actions to remove administrative barriers, and profile the high environmental, animal health and consumer protection standards as EU aquaculture’s main competitive factors.
NGOs are questioning this claim of environmental sustainability. Admittedly, the sector has taken important steps to improve its environmental performance, for example by introducing codes of conduct, the improvement of technologies and management techniques. But various environmental challenges remain to be solved, and although a number of standards are being used, there is no commonly accepted EU production standard.
In particular, NGOs are concerned about the provenance of feed and its link to overfishing, the use of unknown quantities of medicals and chemicals, disease management, the siting, eutrophication, and impact of escapes on ecosystems. And as long as the EU continues to practice ranching of endangered species such as tuna and eel, the sector can hardly stand the test of sustainability.
What’s more, due to gaps in the data, only patchy assessments are available of the impact of aquaculture in the EU, making it impossible to monitor the sector’s environmental performance properly. Such shortcomings also warrant a precautionary approach to the sector’s growth ambitions, especially for emerging kinds of aquaculture, such as offshore aquaculture and aquaculture of new species.
NGOs would like to see the EU promoting evidence and ecosystem-based management of the sector, rather than growth for the sake of growth. It is essential for stakeholders to agree on a definition of environmentally sustainable aquaculture, with policies and plans geared towards measurable targets with indicators to track progress.
Unfortunately, at the moment developments are taking place in a stakeholder consultation vacuum: the Advisory Committee for Fisheries and Aquaculture ceased working some months ago, while the European Aquaculture Advisory Council will start its work in the first half of 2014 at the earliest.
The Commission will soon launch a communication on the strengths of EU aquaculture in order to alleviate the concerns from NGOs and the public. It also announced its intention to develop guidelines on how to best integrate the requirements and targets set by the Marine Strategy Framework Directive and the Water Framework Directive in national aquaculture planning. Hopefully these initiatives will provide a forum to discuss and consolidate important sustainability principles among stakeholders.
Ann Dom is assistant director at Seas At Risk.