UK withdrawal from EU fisheries agreement threatens marine environment

[nitpicker]

http://www.dw.com/en/uk-withdrawal-from-eu-fisheries-agreement-threatens-marine-environment/a-39538349

04.07.2017

UK withdrawal from EU fisheries agreement threatens marine environment

On the surface, the decision of the United Kingdom to withdraw from the so-called London Fisheries Convention (LFC), an agreement that allowed European nations to fish in each other's waters, was an inevitable part of the Brexit process. Nonetheless, the 10,000 metric tons of fish that foreign fleets catch annually in British coastal waters is only a fraction to the 708,000 tonnes of fish that UK fisheries collected in the same waters in 2015.

UK Environment Secretary Michael Gove said the decision to exit the 53-year-old fishing agreement was about "taking back control" of UK waters. He also called common fisheries policy "an environmental disaster," saying the decision to withdraw was made to "ensure that we can have sustainable fish stocks for the future."
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Yet environmentalists are sounding the alarm over concern for marine ecosystems. "I was quite surprised," Will McCallum, Greenpeace UK head of oceans, told DW in response to Gove's statement. "Leaving the London Convention provides no guarantee of sustainability at all."
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Environmental advocates are also concerned that withdrawal from this and many other EU marine water agreements will threaten broader marine biodiversity. Tom West, an associate researcher at London-based ClientEarth, says that Gove's talk about regaining control of fisheries must also include laws to protect UK marine protected areas, which have conservation under EU law.
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Beyond specific fisheries agreements, ClientEarth is concerned about protecting broader marine biodiversity, especially when the UK is no longer subject to the EU Marine Strategy framework directive, implemented in 2008.
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