Holly Cairns TD and Cork County Councillor Ross O’Connell have written to MEPs on the Fisheries Committee to allow CCTV on supertrawlers to provide greater monitoring of their activities. Voting on the revised Fisheries Regulation will allow for this additional transparency measure to help protect sea life and Irish fishing communities. Uplift has led a campaign on this issue and provided legal advice to support the changes.
Holly explains:
“Super-trawlers are an obscene industrialised version of fishing. Massive nets indiscriminately sweep up all forms of fish and sea mammals which further decimate fish stocks and damage Irish coastal and island communities. Super-trawlers are the very opposite of sustainable fishing. We need more oversight of their activities, including the provision in new EU regulations on allowing CCTV to monitor compliance with landing obligations.”
Ross said:
“Fishing policy should be about supporting local communities and ensuring sustainable practices. We need interventions like this one to highlight the harm being done by these factory sized vessels. The Social Democrats are committed to working towards an EU-wide ban on super-trawlers.”
19th May 2020
[ENDS]