Press Releases

4
Nov
2024

Med Sea Alliance Calls for Urgent Action by GFCM to Strengthen Fisheries Management

Rome, Italy – November 4, 2024 – As the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) convenes in Rome, the Med Sea Alliance, alongside its members Oceana and the Environmental Justice Foundation, is urging member countries to take immediate action to safeguard Mediterranean fisheries. With illegal fishing and depleted fish stocks posing critical threats, the Alliance is calling for decisive measures on compliance, transparency, and at-sea monitoring.

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10
Nov
2023

NGOs Applaud Creation of Sanction System to Tackle Mediterranean Overfishing and Illegal Fishing

Crucial step towards building a culture of compliance

Split, Croatia, November 10, 2023:– NGOs today commended the decision by Mediterranean states to create a sanction system that will empower the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) to take action against countries which continue overfishing or illegal fishing, calling it “a crucial step towards building a culture of compliance, which is essential to start rebuilding Mediterranean fish populations”.

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6
Nov
2023

NGOs Call for Urgent Action: Conservation Measures Vital for Protection of Mediterranean Fisheries and Ecosystems

New Measures Would Allow Authorities to tackle non-compliance and illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing 

Split, Croatia, November 6, 2023:– As officials from Mediterranean countries gather this week for the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) annual session in Croatia, NGOs are urging the adoption of a system of corrective measures that would allow the GFCM to tackle illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing and cases of non-compliance within its region – a call backed by a legal analysis published this week that shows that GFCM has the competency to impose such measures [1]. 

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3
Oct
2023

MedFish4Ever Summit: NGOs Call on Fisheries Ministers to Take Action to End Illegal Bottom Trawling in Mediterranean

Ending illegal bottom trawling in the Mediterranean Sea: A Call to Action for the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean

Ministers Meeting for MedFish4Ever High Level Conference on Mediterranean Protection in Malta

MedFish4Ever NGO Side Event to Present Findings – See Below

As fisheries ministers gather in Malta today for the high-level MedFish4Ever conference, NGOs called on them to end the illegal bottom trawling that is driving destruction of protected areas in the Mediterranean, by strengthening compliance and enforcement ahead of November’s General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean (GFCM) annual session in Croatia [1,2]. 

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1
Nov
2022

New Data Reveals Bottom Trawling in Protected Areas Greater Transparency Needed to Stop Illegal Fishing in the Mediterranean

2 November 2022: Members of the Med Sea Alliance, a diverse coalition of NGOs, today launched a new data atlas which, for the first-time, maps areas permanently closed to bottom trawling across the Mediterranean and investigates illegal trawling in these areas.

The Atlas is an online tool that maps presumed and confirmed infringements of bottom trawling in areas where it is permanently banned to protect sensitive habitats and depleted fish stocks. The Atlas has been released ahead of the 45th meeting of the GFCM*, the fisheries management body responsible for the Mediterranean. During the period of January 2020 – December 2021, the Atlas recorded incidents of possible bottom trawling in 35 closed areas by 305 different apparent vessels across 9518 apparent days of fishing activity (based on Global Fishing Watch data¹) and 169 cases of confirmed infractions between 2018 and 2020, based on MedReAct research on media outlets and information released by national control authorities.

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17
Jun
2022

WTO Members Fail Again to Stop Subsidized Overfishing

This week, ministers from all 164 member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO) failed once again to curb harmful fisheries subsidies that lead to overfishing at the 12th Ministerial Conference in Geneva, Switzerland. While Oceana says that eliminating harmful subsidies is the greatest single action that can be taken to protect the world’s oceans, the WTO has continually failed to reach a meaningful agreement since initially taking up the issue at the 2001 Doha Ministerial Conference. Since then, governments have spent over USD $400 billion globally on harmful fisheries subsidies, according to Oceana estimates.

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10
Jan
2022

Stranding of three striped dolphins in the NE Aegean

Three dead striped dolphins, two adult females and a juvenile male, were found off the southeast coast of Samos island. It is estimated that the strong winds carried them there from another part of the Aegean, after they had been drifting for at least three days. The Stranding Response team of the Archipelagos Institute of Marine Conservation arrived on site to investigate the causes of their death.

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