The Common Fisheries Policy: An Exercise in Marine Exploitation

Abstract

The seas and oceans cover 71 per cent of the surface of the earth but, beyond the horizon, are largely unobserved. Marine areas provide 17 per cent of the global population’s protein intake, and over 3 billion people with 20 per cent of their protein. Following population growth, the oceans are expected to make a significant contribution to food security for over 9 billion people by 2050.1 Aside from nutrition, the seas deliver many other ecosystem benefits, including climate stabilization, molecules used in medicine and engineering, the protection of coastlines through ecosystems, such as corals and mangrove, and they act as a sink for 90 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions. Nevertheless, its vital importance is often overlooked. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change notes only ‘the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including oceans, and the protection of biodiversity’, making no further reference to marine areas.2 On land, trees and plants provide half the earth’s primary production, the other half coming from marine ecosystems through ‘minute, short-lived microorganisms suspended in the sunlit surface layer of the oceans’.3 This production sustains the life of all other organisms in the marine environment, including fish, hence the importance of protecting the integrity of marine ecosystems. It is troubling then that the whole North-East Atlantic area is categorised as in overall decline following historic peaks in fish catches in the middle of the last century.4